REPORTAGE
The clashes in the Grésilles district of Dijon, after four nights of violence between the Chechen community and the drug trafficking community, took a political turn on Tuesday: Secretary of State Laurent Nuñez promised firmness in the face of these actions, while that the president of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, responded directly to the government, which she accuses of simply wanting to "intervene".
Police intervened "immediately", says Nuñez
"Our response will be extremely firm," said Laurent Nuñez when he left a police station in Dijon. The Secretary of State to the Minister of the Interior wanted to brush aside the accusations of delay by the police, as pointed out by several residents of the district: "The police did not stay behind, it is completely inaccurate, "he denied. "There were reprisals carried out on Friday evening. When there was this car accident, which everyone could see, the police immediately intervened to avoid disturbing public order."
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Laurent Nuñez also announced the reinforcement of some 150 mobile gendarmes at the scene of the clashes to help the police already on the spot: "The police were present throughout this sequence and they will remain so in a determined manner" , he warned.
Le Pen escorted by CRS
A few hours later, Marine Le Pen arrived in the Grésilles district on foot, escorted by around thirty CRS. The police also had to repel with tear gas canisters the hundred or so far-left activists who had left the procession for the hospitals in order to prevent the president of the National Rally from speaking.
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This tense atmosphere led Marine Le Pen, whose party was convicted of concealing misuse of corporate property in an election financing case, to start its press conference an hour late. The leader notably criticized the "responsible multiculturalism" of the events of the past few days: "I call on the French to face the truth. It is not only a question, as the government wants to do, of interposing between communities, but to put an end to this sinister sequence without weakness. What is happening is an episode of a general phenomenon. "