A hundred hooded people pulled fireworks against vehicles in Limoges, in central France, during night clashes with the police. The riots made nine injured among the police, the authorities said on Saturday.
The facts occurred around 1 a.m. in the night of Friday to Saturday near a popular district of Limoges, where “a hundred people” blocked a national road and attacked vehicles, “mainly by mortar fire” fireworks, according to the prefecture of Haute-Vienne.
“There were between 100 and 150 hooded individuals, armed with Molotov cocktails, mortars, stones, iron bars and baseball bats,” said Laurent Nadeau, departmental secretary of the Alliance police union.
The police have used defense ball launchers (LBD) and tear gas. The scuffles stopped around 4 a.m.
“Some vehicles were occupied by families, in the presence of minor children,” said the prosecution in a statement, saying that it had identified eight complaints on ten victims. “None of the motorists have been physically abused. However, many are particularly shocked.”
Urban guerrilla
“It is an urban guerrilla warfare,” denounced the mayor of the city Emile Roger Lombertie. “It’s been 4-5 years since it exploded in this district. For me, there is danger,” he added, describing a “district of great poverty with young immigration”, who, according to him, became an area of lawlessness “.
Eight of the nine wounded police officers suffer from tinnitus and the ninth from a hand injury, according to the Limoges prosecutor’s office.
According to the prosecutor of Limoges Emilie Abrantes, this district is certainly “known” for drug trafficking, but “no element makes it possible to connect this night’s events with a recent investigation into drug trafficking”.
This scuffle night follows other clashes that occurred in the same area on the evening of July 14, the day of the national holiday in France. The Ministry of the Interior has announced the deployment in this city of a police company specializing in the maintenance of order.
AFP/EDEL