At least 30 cars set on fire in Strasbourg, France, during New Year’s Eve riots (+Video) – World news
At least 30 vehicles were destroyed in arson on Thursday evening, according to police sources quoted by the French daily Le Figaro.
“We are already at a certain number of burnt vehicles”, indicated the office of Josiane Chevalier, the prefect of Bas-Rhin, specifying that several arrests had been made throughout the night.
Burning cars, as well as those entirely engulfed in flames, have been seen in videos posted on social media, in some cases triggering loud explosions as the vehicles’ fuel ignited.
Warning earlier Thursday that there would be no ‘concession’ to vandals, Chevalier said the city ‘cannot afford to have the same record as last year’ and authorities had done everything what was in their power to reduce car fires.
In 2019, some 220 cars in the city were incinerated in a series of relentless vandalism on New Year’s Eve.
Along with a nationwide 8 p.m. curfew and a number of street closures in Strasbourg, fireworks were banned for the entire month of December. Local police have also set up “mobile forces” in “strategic locations” across the city, according to Annie Bregal, director of public security for Bas-Rhin. A total of 100,000 officers and gendarmes have been stationed across France to enforce the restrictions, and the retail sale of fuel has been temporarily banned.
However, the measures did little to stop the rampage on Thursday evening, with throngs of vandals on the streets despite the curfew and a heavy presence of law enforcement, which included a police helicopter, filmed shining a spotlight on the city below. The ban on fireworks also appears to have been largely ignored, with bangs echoing throughout the night.
Strasbourg is not the only city to have taken part in the annual New Year’s Eve arson festival, with a record 1,457 cars burned last year across France, according to media reports. The previous year, 1,290 vehicles had been set on fire. The destruction has become something of an annual rite in French suburbs since 2005, when riots gripped Paris and other cities for three weeks, sending countless buildings and cars up in flames and killing at least three people.