Toulouse: 30 burnt cars, police station attacked with mortar, some rustling of sheet metal… story of a New Year’s Eve
The police and firefighters were busy on New Year’s Eve. 30 vehicles were burned in the police zone and the Mirail police station was attacked with mortars.
Under the shock, the wall literally exploded taking with it the fence. Pieces of tires and bodywork are strewn across the Stockhall car park. The Ford Focus, airbags open, ended its race a few meters from the entrance to a food store in Bellefontaine in Toulouse. The passenger(s) did not have to be asked and fled before the arrival of the police. New Year’s Eve was hot in the neighborhood. “The festivities” began a few hours before midnight. “This year, it was particularly hectic. From 9 p.m., there were firecrackers and fireworks. After that it didn’t stop. I went to bed quite early. I don’t really know what happened next,” says 72-year-old Jasmine, a historic resident of one of the Bellefontaine towers. The Mirail police station was targeted in the middle of the night. The building received mortar fire. According to our information, no injuries are to be deplored, the perpetrator has not yet been arrested.
“Heavy criminal penalties”
This attack against one of the symbols of the republic is unfortunately not a first. The Alliance Police Nationale union, through Gregory Hemous, its deputy departmental secretary, demands stronger sanctions for those who commit such acts: “As every year on New Year’s Eve, the forces of the order are the object of gratuitous violence. This must stop. We must break this phenomenon of trivialization by applying heavy penal sanctions to the perpetrators of these offences. These individuals also attack the citizens of these neighborhoods who, for some, see their burning vehicles.”
On New Year’s Eve throughout the police area, Toulouse and the surrounding area, 30 vehicles were set on fire, 20 of them directly. The firefighters were not idle since during the night, they had to intervene on around forty fires throughout the Haute-Garonne. In the gendarmerie zone, the soldiers were also on all fronts, in particular to put an end to the endless fights of drunken people. More unusual, the gendarmes of the Toulouse-Saint-Michel company came in large numbers to the home of a young woman who had organized a party at her house. Through the “magic” of social networks, individuals who were not invited to the party heard the news and arrived in large numbers at the party. It quickly became quite chaotic. About 70 people had to be evacuated by the gendarmes.