A few hours after a rally in front of the Avignon police station in which the police officer killed during an operation to combat drug trafficking worked, two suspects were arrested on Sunday, May 9 in the evening. 

The shooter who fatally struck Eric Masson, a 36-year-old brigadier in central Avignon on Wednesday, fled immediately with his accomplice.

Sunday evening, two suspects were arrested about twenty kilometers from Avignon.

Contacted, the Avignon prosecutor's office did not wish to comment at this stage.

The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who will attend a national tribute on Tuesday to the police officer chaired by Prime Minister Jean Castex, for his part congratulated the police via Twitter for these arrests, believing that "this crime should in no case go unpunished ".

I congratulate the national police on the arrest of two suspects, four days after this despicable murder.


This crime must never go unpunished.

https://t.co/fkBZwCW2bc

- Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) May 9, 2021

Very tried colleagues

Early Sunday afternoon, several thousand people, 5,000 according to the police, plainclothes police officers or residents of the surrounding area came to lay flowers or put a note on the condolence registers in front of the portrait of the father of the family, on the steps of the police station.

During this rally, at the call of the trade unions, the silence was interrupted only by applause for the police and two Marseillaises.

Eric Masson's teammates, very tried, were present but not his family who expressed their need for tranquility in this moment of mourning and wishes to stay away from any political and media unrest.

In the crowd, a lady who prefers to keep her name silent was not hiding her tears.

"My son was with him, he held his hand when he was dying. He is devastated. I feel immense anger against this system. Why so much hatred?", Confides this mother of one of the brigadiers of the team. by Eric Masson.

Called Wednesday on a well-known drug trafficking point, in the historic center of Avignon, the police officers of the Vaucluse-Gard departmental intervention brigade, in civilian clothes, including Eric Masson, had carried out the control of a client "of which looked like an exchange of narcotics ", according to the prosecutor Philippe Guémas.

While the woman had just been arrested by the two policemen, "two individuals came forward (...) and one of the two, carrying a shoulder bag, (them) asked what they were doing there. ", explained Philippe Guémas:" Eric Masson declined his quality of police officer and the individual took out a handgun and fired twice, hitting him in the thorax and the abdomen ".

The policeman died on the spot.

"What we feel is even more anger because we are resigned. It will get worse and worse because there is no support. Behind, justice does not follow", laments Nicolas, a former Marseille colleague of Eric Masson.

He confides his doubts, his shaken vocation.

"We like what we do," tempers a colleague, Franck, at his side.

"We are not warriors but peacekeepers", insists Bruno Bartoccetti, regional secretary of the SGP Unity union, which hopes for firmer measures against "dealers who are armed today".

"We must give justice the means to sanction," he says.

The police received by the Prime Minister

Monday, all police unions must be received by Prime Minister Jean Castex.

Fabien Vanhemelryck, secretary general of Alliance police nationale, calls for him "irreducible penalties for each category of offenses".

"The fight against drug trafficking, everywhere on the national territory, is akin to a war. We are waging this war thanks to soldiers, (...) the police and gendarmes of France. Today, one of these soldiers died as a hero, "Gerald Darmanin said on Wednesday.

The department of Vaucluse, one of the ten poorest in France, has seen an increase in drug trafficking in recent years, like several cities in the Mediterranean arc, according to police and judicial officials.

With AFP and Reuters

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