A total of 420 people were arrested in France in the New Year celebrations due to various incidents and altercations that also resulted in 984 vehicles burnedFrench Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced this Wednesday.
This represents an increase of 10.53% compared to last year in terms of arrests and 32.08% in the number of cars set on fire.
Of all those detained people, 310 were under arrest, Retailleau said in a statement, which detailed some of the most serious events that occurred during the New Year celebrations. In particular, the case of a two-year-old child who was hit in the face by an artificial mortar in the center of Lyon and who runs the risk of losing an eye. He also narrated the incident of an individual who had to be admitted in a state of absolute emergency in Thonon-les-Bains when he also used one of those artificial mortars and a rocket shot that caused a fire that destroyed an apartment.
Law enforcement had deployed 90,000 police and gendarmes on French territory, 10,000 in Paris and its metropolitan area, within the security apparatus for New Year’s, which also included firefighters and civil protection volunteers.
Retailleau, member of the conservative party The Republicans (LR) and known for his hard-right positions on security and immigration issues, stressed in his statement: “We cannot be satisfied with this annual accounting, which is still too high,” in reference to the hundreds of burned cars.
“This violence,” he denounced, “is the result of the savagery of cowardly criminals who attack the property of often modest French people who do not have the means to protect their vehicles in private parking lots.”
The response for the minister has to come with security measures, but that is not enough, and that is why he considered that “to really address the causes of this gratuitous and endemic violence, there must also be a judicial response that is up to the task because “True prevention is true sanctions.”
He added that a “educational response to hold accountable”which includes “also sanctioning parents who clearly fail.”
The practice of burning cars on New Year’s Eve in France originated in the early 1990s, especially in the suburbs of Strasbourg. Initially, young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods set vehicles on fire as a form of protest and to attract media attention.
Over time, this action spread to other French cities and became an unfortunate tradition during New Year’s celebrations. The motivations behind these acts are varied, including social unrest, the search for notoriety and, in some cases, insurance fraud.
(With information from AFP)
