Des accusations de violences racistes à Saint-Michel
The national police confirm that an investigation has been opened after numerous acts of violence were reported to them overnight from Friday to Saturday, in the working-class district of Saint-Michel in Bordeaux.
She was called at 2:16 a.m. by an individual who reported a fight in rue des Menuts. “At 2:29 a.m., four police crews arrived at the scene. There was no one present at the supposed location of the facts, ”reports the Bordeaux prosecutor’s office.
An investigation for intentional assault and battery
Photos and videos posted on social networks are analyzed as part of these investigations, and witnesses are also heard. In one of the videos, a group of about ten people attacks passers-by and residents, and one of them imitates the cries of a monkey. It also shows two of the people using an iron bar to hit each other.
“The prosecution has decided to open an investigation in order to avoid the spread of erroneous and partial information. And this, despite the absence of any complaint, any report and any spontaneous deposition of direct witnesses of the facts, “said the Bordeaux prosecutor’s office. This investigation was entrusted to the departmental directorate of public security, on the grounds of intentional assault and battery with a weapon, without ITT.
In a press release sent Sunday evening, the association SOS Racism Gironde condemned what it describes as “ratonnade”, and implicates the far-right group “Bordeaux Nationaliste”. “According to our information, several residents, passers-by and victims testified that they heard the attackers chanting songs, racist slogans and the words ‘Bordeaux Nationaliste'”. The prosecution recalls that it is the investigation which establishes whether racist, Islamophobic or homophobic insults have been pronounced, as conveyed by certain comments online.
“A few days before, the Pride March suffered homophobic insults with a banner denouncing “LGBT madness”, and attacks on participants which could be the work of other far-right groups”, advances for its part the league human rights in a press release. “For the time being, contrary to what has been put forward here or there, there is no element militating in a link which would exist between these facts and those committed during the March of Freedoms last week”, nuance the parquet floor.
Multiplication of identity acts
Olivier Escots, deputy mayor of Bordeaux in charge of disability and the fight against all discrimination, reacts by pointing out a series of worrying facts. “We see that there are groups that have been active in Bordeaux lately: the events of this weekend in Saint-Michel, for which an investigation is underway, the regular damage to the rainbow passages, the events during the pride march on June 12, the explanatory plaque on the slave trade which was degraded, he says. There are subjects that bother a certain segment of the population that can be described as identity and extreme right and that provoke this kind of act. »
The recent degradations of the rainbow passages have consisted of covering them with French flags or fleur-de-lys, “identity, nationalist and royalist markers”, points out the deputy. Investigations are underway into the events that occurred in Saint-Michel, but also those that occurred during the Pride March, after new complaints.