Incidents broke out on Saturday evening on the Esplanade des Invalides in Paris between a few hundred young people participating in an improvised party and law enforcement officials who came to interrupt the festivities, said an AFP journalist.
The call for this festive gathering had been discreetly launched on social networks under the code name "ProjetX", in reference to the cult American film "Project X" of 2012 on a party organized by teenagers and which skids by its magnitude .
đź”´Tensions underway at the Invalides after the launch of a Project X evening. Several thousand young people are present. The police are on site. # ProjetX #Invalides #Paris #France pic.twitter.com/jLg04tBddg
- Charles Baudry (@CharlesBaudry) June 27, 2020Incidents that started shortly before midnight
The incidents began shortly before midnight on the lawns of the Esplanade des Invalides when young people who had gathered there launched projectiles at the passage of several law enforcement vehicles arriving on the scene. The police then used tear gas to disperse the revelers.
According to Anaëlle, a 19 year old Parisian, who came with two friends, "we heard about it on the networks, there were a few hundred of us, there was a little music, people with speakers but nothing organized", said she told AFP on the spot.
"It's gone in a spin"
Then "it went into a spin, there are people who started to throw bottles at their heads, in two seconds the police arrived we were surrounded, they started shooting tear gas", she continued.
Around 01:30, a few dozen very mobile young people were still on the esplanade, sometimes throwing bottles at each other and also at the police who, again, had to fire tear gas canisters to disperse the last recalcitrants, noted an AFP journalist.
These incidents come seven days after the music festival which had given rise to controversial mass gatherings of young people, despite the still active circulation of the coronavirus.
- Clashes
- Police
- Disabled
- Paris
- Party
- Society