Lyon (AFP)

Images of hooded and armed men around a deal point in Grenoble would they come from a simple rap clip?

Its author affirms it, but the investigators are determined to raise the gray areas that remain.

Last week, two videos posted on social networks aroused the ire of the authorities.

The first showed several hooded men and sometimes armed with seemingly real weapons around a drug point in the Mistral district.

The second filmed five men around a table covered in narcotics presented as candy.

"Inadmissible", reacted on Twitter the public prosecutor in Grenoble, Eric Vaillant, who was opening an investigation.

The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, ordered a police raid denounced as a communication operation by the mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle - who will soon be received at Place Beauvau.

After the broadcast of these videos, "it was important to reaffirm the authority of the State in this territory", justified on the spot the prefect of Isère, Lionel Beffre, while voices were already evoking, around him, shooting a rap clip.

It was posted on Monday, a week after the videos were broadcast, perfect timing to relaunch the case.

With different angles and higher picture quality, this clip uses footage from the second video but not the first - would these be two different shoots?

The clip also shows men with automatic weapons but who would be "fake", according to its author - we also see a magazine emptied of its balls, and not of bullets.

As for the products packaged on the table, it would only be "CBD" (cannabidiol, the non-psychotropic molecule of cannabis, Editor's note).

- "Staging" -

Interviewed Tuesday by France 3, rapper Corbak Hood assured that his clip had "nothing to do" with the drug trafficking that plagues the Mistral district.

"It has nothing to do with me, I'm a rapper (...) my channel (Youtube, editor's note) says a lot, Instagram says even more (...) it's all staging ", he said explaining to have made this clip because it" struggled a little "in his musical activity.

"There was an opportunity to buzz and I used it, the clip I did before (the controversy, editor's note) and I let it leak, like Stromae for the + Formidable + clip, I let it leak two-three pictures. "

"I waited two or three days for the buzz to take, for it to go up, and there I threw the clip, it's the right time. I wasn't expecting that, I've been doing it for 16 hours. posted, it worked well, I've never seen 30,000 views on my channel, my phone is hot (...) I didn't know it was going to work at that point, move the prefect, all that ", underlines the rapper.

"Regarding the video shot in Grenoble last week, some now claim that it was the shooting of a clip ... The investigation by the prosecutor will shed light on this point. Clip or not clip , we do not have the right to be armed on the public highway, "the prefecture tweeted on Tuesday.

According to prosecutor Éric Vaillant, the investigation must determine "who made these videos, what is the exact nature of the weapons and drugs on display, and the links between the videographers and drug traffickers in the neighborhood" .

© 2020 AFP