In recent years, insecurity has been a recurring subject in Nantes.
Faced with this phenomenon, the merchants of the city center are sticking together and have created the S2N association.
This association currently offers self-defense initiations for night professionals.
Studious atmosphere at the Petit Marais, a bar in downtown Nantes.
On the usual dance floor, Anthony repeats his advice: “The idea is not to hit hard.
If you slap me here, that's enough, ”he explains to the assembly.
Around this self-defense trainer, a dozen night professionals, most of them waiters or bartenders.
Of the twelve trainees present at this training, nine have already been verbally or physically attacked.
At their place of work, but also when they return home at night.
"The implementation of this training started from a request from traders", explains Guillaume Toutin, president of the S2N association (Sécurité Nocturne Nantes), which set up these self-defense training sessions.
The association was born two years ago to work against insecurity in Nantes and challenge the local authorities about the incivilities and attacks that have been increasing in the city for a few years.
Today, 830 professionals from Nantes are part of it and alert themselves on social networks in case of danger: pickpockets, assaults… “When you poach at 3 am, you don't want to be attacked.
The goal of this training is to know how to get out of a tense situation with simple gestures.
The demand is such that the association has had to refuse people since the launch of registrations.
“I am constantly on my guard”
Among the night professionals present that day, Nedjma listens to the advice of Anthony, the instructor.
The person in charge of the Petit Marais, located rue Kervégan, had no knowledge in the field of self-defense.
And yet, the need is there, according to her.
"I did not know this insecurity before arriving in Nantes" a few years ago.
“I was assaulted three times in eight months.
I had never been afraid when I came home from work.
Now I am constantly on my guard,” she says.
She thinks back in particular to a night when a man began to take her by the arm when she had refused to give him a cigarette.
“When he took my wrist, I was paralyzed.
Today I learned how to free myself.
“A scenario that can also happen” with violent customers “.
This initiation to defensive gestures, the young woman had been waiting for a long time.
“The situation in the city center at night is not getting better.
It's getting worse and worse," she said.
“But I love my job and I don't want to run away”.
Just like Adrien, a recent restaurant server who sometimes fears for his safety when he leaves work in the evening.
“I needed to be less afraid.
We learn simple gestures, which are not intended to hurt the person in front.
These are keys to finding a way out.
It's reassuring.
»
“We are not fighters!
»
For Anthony, who works on a voluntary basis, the main objective is to reverse the trend.
“You have to make the aggressor understand that psychological reversal is possible.
For this, the useful movements are deciphered.
“It is not because we are 1.90 m and 130 kg that we are stronger.
Without forgetting either that the idea is to be able to free oneself and then take refuge.
We are not fighters!
»
It also explains to traders how to behave in a tense situation: taking a step back or adapting one's speech to one's interlocutor can be levers to unlock a situation of conflict.
"You shouldn't hesitate to shout to alert people either, if it's happening in the street", specifies this security professional, who has worked for twenty years in the world of the night.
For him, “the rise in insecurity is flagrant in Nantes”.
Other training sessions on defensive gestures for merchants are planned for the coming weeks.
For its part, the town hall of Nantes is strengthening its municipal police force, extending the hours of presence and will install 60 additional cameras.
The State has also recruited around forty new national police officers.
Justice
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Nantes: A young woman seriously injured after an attack in the city center
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Nantes
Security
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