Clashes pitted gendarmes and revelers during the night of Friday, June 18, during an intervention to disperse an illegal rave party near Redon.
Five gendarmes were injured and a young participant "of 22 years lost a hand", announced Saturday morning the prefect of Ille-et-Vilaine, Emmanuel Berthier.
An investigation was "immediately carried out by the Rennes prosecutor's office" in order to establish the circumstances of "this dramatic accident".
“1,500 people”, according to the prefect, had made an appointment for a rave party in tribute to Steve Maia Caniço, who died in Nantes two years ago during the Fête de la Musique.
Despite a prefectural decree prohibiting any festive gathering, the revelers had converged on Redon Friday evening, explained the prefect and the gendarmerie intervened to prevent the gathering.
According to him, "clashes, clashes of extreme violence lasted a very large part of the night, more than seven hours".
He mentioned "molotov cocktail throws, pétanque balls, pieces of cinder block".
Emmanuel Berthier estimated that the gendarmerie had in front of it "people who had an objective, to do battle with the public force".
"Once again, the authorities have chosen violence instead of dialogue. Rains of tear gas and grenades fell on a crowd who only wanted to party .... All for wanting to dance," reacted for its part the Teknival of forbidden music.
Tribute to Steve Maia Caniço
Calls to pay tribute to Steve Maia Caniço, a young Nantes man who fell in the Loire during the intervention of the police forces two years ago, had been launched in recent days.
"In memory of Steve Maia Caniço, in support of the defendants of the Maskarade de Lieuron and for all the victims of repression, our only desire was to brandish music loud and clear as a standard and as an inseparable element of our lives", added the Teknival of forbidden music.
“Since last night, there has been no music,” the prefecture had indicated on Saturday morning, but according to an AFP photographer, it had resumed in the morning.
Some 400 gendarmes were mobilized and prevented Saturday any access to the area near the Redon racecourse, noted an AFP photographer.
The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, "is monitoring the situation in Redon very closely. He canceled the events planned for his day and made regular updates with the authorities," said those around him.
Friday, two years almost to the day after the death of Steve Maia Caniço, the Rennes public prosecutor Philippe Astruc announced that, according to the investigation, the young man had fallen into the Loire "during the intervention of the police "whose objective was to disperse the rally in which the young man was participating.
Steve's body was found over a month later.
His disappearance had triggered great emotion in the city where demonstrators demanded "Justice for Steve", deeming the police intervention disproportionate.
Already in Ille-et-Vilaine, on New Year's Eve, in the midst of a health crisis, a rave party was held in Lieuron, bringing together 2,400 people for 36 hours.
Nine people had been indicted and a young man presented as one of the organizers had been imprisoned for several weeks.
The Teknival of forbidden music claims to have chosen "the district of Rennes whose prosecutor, Philippe Astruc, is currently the most representative of these policies of repression and stigmatization".
With AFP
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