Toulouse: “We were savagely attacked by a dozen young people leaving the restaurant”
Stanislas, his brother and two friends were victims of a violent attack this Saturday at Place Esquirol in Toulouse. They were quietly leaving the parking lot when a dozen young people attacked them.
“We can no longer walk quietly in Toulouse without being attacked,” notes Stanislas, bitter. His right ear has been hurting him badly since last Saturday. “I have a pierced eardrum, my friend has two broken ribs. All that for nothing”, regrets this forties.
On June 11, Stanislas, his brother and a couple of friends spent the evening in a restaurant located on Place de la Bourse in Toulouse. After the meal, they all go back to their car, parked in the Indigo parking lot at Place Esquirol. The evening will skid out of the parking lot. Stanislas’ car and his friends crash into a metal surface under the gaze of a group of young people gathered near Mc Donald’s. “My friend went out to see the damage, he was insulted by these individuals. And when he wanted to fight back, the blows fell. I went out in my turn, and I was not spared”, testifies Stanislas, still in shock.
“It looked like animals”
Around them, for long minutes, hooded and very violent men and women. “It looked like animals. As if they had consumed a drug. It was terrible. They even followed us in the small streets. The scariest thing is this feeling of being left to our own devices. No one did not come to help us”.
A few minutes after this altercation, the victims got back into their car before calling for help. “The police promised us that a patrol was coming but we did not see it. We filed a complaint the next day”, says this man. In reality, a police force, piloted by the control room and its video screens, intervened but the protagonists had already escaped. Since the facts, the Toulouse prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for assault.
Police officers, who present images of the attack, are carrying out investigations to find the perpetrators. “Checks are in progress, we hope to have a positive result quickly”, we explain at the central police station. In the meantime, Stanislas is traumatized. “It does not make you want to come to town to go out. The center is no longer secure, you can be attacked savagely for a misinterpreted word or a simple look. Next time, we will gather in a quieter place, too bad for the restaurants in the area”.