This will be the first market of the "after". Last year, December 11, 2018, Cheriff Chekat killed 5 people and wounded 10 others in Strasbourg, among the passersby making their Christmas shopping. A year later, the city's famous market opens again in eight days, for its 450th edition, with a considerably strengthened security device.
In uniform or in civilian clothes, the police will be everywhere in the streets of Strasbourg with a simple objective: to saturate the ground. The police forces mobilized will be more numerous and the Christmas market will be divided into three sectors to gain efficiency, according to the director of public security, Annie Bregal: "On each of these sectors, there will be what the we call a crew TDM 2. That is to say police force trained specifically to intervene in a context 'mass killing'. "
Call for the vigilance of the people of Strasbourg and tourists
"We are able to detect, perhaps, more quickly, it is clear that there is no completely waterproof device," she says. Excavations will be strengthened, but not systematic, given the large number of people expected.
The prefect Jean-Luc Marx calls on him to the vigilance of the Strasburgers and the tourists: "I want them to feel reassured but that they preserve or even reinforce their vigilance.We need them also for the presence of 'a bag or even the passage of this or that individual with characteristics that might seem threatening and that would not have been detected by someone else.
December 11, 2019 will be the day of tribute to the victims including an ecumenical mass at the cathedral.