A pitched battle between motorists, exchanges of stab wounds and hammering, several injuries, a toll blocked for two hours and 8 km of traffic jams on the motorway ... The Vienne-Reventin toll south of Lyon on the A7 was this Wednesday morning the scene of clashes during a demonstration by the Armenian community in support of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Several dozen people from this community had met around 7:30 a.m. at the southern entrance to the Lyon metropolis, waving flags in the colors of Armenia, smoke bombs and chanting slogans hostile to Erdogan, the Turkish president.
It was then that the situation degenerated into a pitched battle.
"Clashes broke out between demonstrators and motorists causing four injuries, one of whom was injured by a hammer blow, transported to the hospital in Vienne" indicates the prefecture of Isère.
The life of this injured young man would not be in danger.
"Not the fact of official associations"
No arrests took place at the time of the facts and the authorities are unable to confirm the presence of people of Turkish origin in the fight, as argued by the Armenian demonstrators.
To try to unravel the case, the Prosecutor of the Republic of Vienna, Audrey Quey, opened an investigation entrusted to the CRS of the highway, counts of "violence in meeting with weapon".
The investigators immediately launched a call for witnesses in order to identify the protagonists of this violence and to recover the videos made by many motorists stuck in traffic jams.
The Armenian community in the region shows itself to be divided on this affair, regretting the organization of this kind of savage demonstrations through social networks, which, watched by the Turkish community, leads to violent responses.
But she also says she understands the process.
"These demonstrations of support for Nagorno-Karabakh are not the work of official associations" notes Jeanine Paloulian, co-president of the CCAF (Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations in France).
“If they are illegal, we regret it, we must respect the law and the procedures, she continues, but at the same time, we understand the exasperation of these young people who follow live what is happening in Armenia, they only express their suffering.
The current situation there dictates what happens here ”.
The official associations fear in any case the multiplication, on the French territory, of this kind of wild and uncontrollable demonstrations, organized by young Armenians to alert the public option on the situation of Nagorno-Karabakh.