What do we know about the attack on a police station in Champigny-sur-Marne?

About forty people attacked Saturday evening at the Champigny-sur-Marne police station, at the gates of Paris, with fireworks mortars, without causing injuries.

Several vehicles were also damaged.

This police station had already been targeted in April.

This attack, in the heart of a Priority Security Zone, sparked a stir among the police and the wrath of the right-wing opposition, which called on the government to be more firm.

Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, has promised to go there.

What happened at the Champigny-sur-Marne police station?

The incidents started shortly before midnight and ended an hour later.

Two officers were in front of the police station smoking when around forty people, face concealed and armed with iron bars, arrived, breaking in particular windows of police vehicles and the glass door of the entrance, according to a police source. .

The two officials were able to take shelter in the security lock at the entrance to the police station, located in the heart of the city of Bois-L'Abbé, one of the three neighborhoods in the priority security zone of this city. near the Bois de Vincennes.

An investigation of flagrance, now entrusted to the Territorial Security of Val-de-Marne, has been opened for "violence in assembly with weapon on persons depositary of public authority" and "damage to public and private property", a said the Créteil prosecutor's office, indicating that among the damaged vehicles were two police cars.

The same police station had already been the target of an attack in April.

No arrest has taken place so far, said the Créteil prosecutor's office on Sunday mid-day, specifying that the video surveillance tapes were "in use".

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Do we know the reasons for this attack?

This attack comes after the very violent one to which two police officers were beaten and shot and wounded on Wednesday evening in Val-d'Oise while they were on a mission.

According to a source close to the investigation, the most seriously injured police officer is in stable condition but still in an artificial coma.

Expressing his "total support" for the police, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin seemed to link in a tweet the clashes in Champigny to drug trafficking speaking of the "little guys" who "do not impress anyone and do not discourage our work against drugs".

The tenant of Place Beauvau was expected on site Sunday evening, but hinted in a tweet that he would travel later so as not to interfere with the work of investigators.

#champigny: I asked @prefpolice for the greatest firmness.

Investigators are hard at work identifying the troublemakers.

In order not to hamper them in this mission, I will go there, to the police, after this work has been accomplished.

- Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) October 11, 2020

"We are dealing with delinquents who want to do battle with the police. It was an objective to break the cop and nothing else," said Europe 1 Laurent Jeanne, the various right-wing mayor of the Ile-de-France city.

This attack could follow an arrest that went badly at the beginning of the week, according to a local resident interviewed by Europe 1. "They hit a guy, a young kid from the neighborhood, they rushed into him," he said "They broke his femur, he is still in the hospital," he said.

"We have tried to appease the climate in recent days and organized meetings between young people and the police. The delinquents create a tension, exacerbated on social networks", further explained the mayor of the city on Europe 1.

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 Police station attacked in Champigny: "It was an objective to break the cop and nothing else"

How did the political class react?

The president of the departmental council Christian Favier (PCF) asked for the creation of a second police station in the city, deploring in a press release that "since July and the arson (of a) gymnasium, Champigny has known" several other particularly worrying events. "The Alliance union denounced this attack." It is high time that the government seized on the violence committed against the police (...) No one respects the police. ", reacted its general delegate, Frédéric Lagache.

Along the same lines, the right-wing opposition denounces these attacks on the police and calls for a strong reaction from the government. "These scenes of war are intolerable", for Valérie Pécresse, LR president of the Ile-de-France region. “Stop impunity and anti-cop hatred!” Reacted LR MP Eric Ciotti (LR). Guest of the

on Europe 1 on Sunday, the former Minister of the Interior Brice Hortefeux spoke of "an extremely serious incident committed by vandals". He proposes in particular to put in place minimum penalties "from the first act committed against the depositaries of public authority".