New Year's Eve often rhymes with tensions for the police and gendarmes mobilized.
This year, the police had an additional mission: to control the curfew in effect from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.
A constraint rather well respected in Marseille where Europe 1 was able to follow a CRS patrol.
REPORTAGE
Cité la Cayolle, in Marseille, a CRS team blocks the road to a German sedan.
On board, three young friends.
"I am looking for food to buy cigarettes, I have made a certificate!", Launches one of them.
A justification which seems a little far-fetched because on the certificate, the reason for leaving is none other than: "short trips for the needs of pets".
"Does your animal smoke?", The police officer quipped.
In Marseille as everywhere in France, the police were mobilized to monitor compliance with the curfew on a New Year's Eve dreaded by the authorities.
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To definitively turn the page of a trying year, marked by the coronavirus, some still felt the need to party, but everywhere in France, it was forbidden to travel between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.
This year, the police therefore had to monitor the excesses but also the comings and goings of the French.
A well-respected curfew
And the three Marseille friends will not escape it.
The young men exchange a few nervous laughs, cross their fingers but the CRS informs them when he lets them go: "Put on your seat belt, go home and you will be fined 135 euros each for non-compliance with confinement".
This verbalization remains one of the few of the evening.
In the Phocaean city, the streets are deserted by vehicles as well as pedestrians, the curfew of December 31 has been well respected.
"I'm not very surprised, I thought people were going to stay at home. They all played the game of making this containment on New Year's Eve, for us it's good", remarks the commander of the team.
At the time of the midnight countdown, a few noises, firecrackers and foghorns sound from the balconies: the revelers have stayed at home.