INFO EUROPE 1 - Haute-Corse: the CRS report the "battle" of Bastia to their hierarchy

William Molinié 5:47 p.m., March 14, 2022

Homemade bombs, molotov cocktails, fireworks mortar fire… In CRS memory, the urban guerrilla scenes on Sunday in Bastia, during the demonstration in support of Yvan Colonna, have rarely been so intense.

“Incredibly violent”, reports one of them who was on the front line.

The service reports written and sent to the hierarchy of the three companies engaged in Bastia, and which Europe 1 was able to consult, give an idea of ​​the intensity of the clashes.

These reports detail, minute by minute, the events that occurred, the orders received and the maneuvers carried out.

The law enforcement operation begins at noon.

A little earlier, even, for the CRS 53 from Marseille, which came as reinforcements to Bastia and was confined to Furiani.

While the CRS leave their building a little before 11 a.m., they are called as soon as they leave their building by a mother for her six-year-old child who is feeling unwell.

False start.

They must wait for the firefighters to take charge, before returning to the road and returning to their post at the level of the prefecture.

Premeditated acts

In addition to 53, companies 59 and 50 are also responsible for defending this building, which has become the symbol of Parisian power in Haute-Corse.

Around 1:30 p.m., police officers, alerted that projectiles were on the roof of a building opposite the prefecture, neutralized the access hatch.

An hour later, local staff discovered more than 350 cocktails in half a dozen bags in a downtown parking lot.

At 2:45 p.m., 1,200 demonstrators are counted at the Bastia court.

The physiognomy of the event is described as "calm".

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Ten minutes later, the CRS 53 observes the presence of 60 "hooded demonstrators" in front of the bar "Le Pénalty", place of the town hall, then an hour later, a hundred hooded individuals in front of the main entrance of the prefecture.

The CRS 59, positioned a little further away, also noted at the same time the movement of these "young hooded people" who bypassed the device on the east side.

In the meantime, the staff of all the companies are helmeted, a sign of a rise in tension.

"Good Offensives" 

At 4 p.m., several individuals were spotted preparing molotov cocktails in the parking lot of the station and in front of the prefecture.

As the procession arrives at this time in front of the prefecture, the tension rises a notch.

Smoke bombs are lit and the first projectiles rain down on the police, according to these documents which Europe 1 has read.

At 4:10 p.m. the usual warnings are announced by the commissioner in charge of the system.

Then followed a rain of tear gas grenades which saturated the air and the space around the prefecture.

The security forces will then alternate between assaults to gain ground and withdrawal phases to take shelter and reload their ammunition.

Then, at 4:30 p.m., CRS 53 suffered an offensive with numerous explosive devices "with polyscreening".

Barricades are set up, the first injured on the side of the police are taken to the hospital.

Around 5 p.m., a hundred hooded individuals led an assault at a roadblock in rue du Chanoine Colombani, one of the streets leading to the prefecture.

The CRS retaliate with de-encirclement grenades and fire from defense ball launchers.

Several "good offensives" will then be carried out to try to repel individuals carrying molotov cocktails.

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At 5:55 p.m., CRS 59 personnel were targeted by pétanque balls.

Shortly before, it was a CRS 50 policeman who had just been shot by an "explosive pétanque ball with shrapnel", damaging his Sig Sauer service weapon and injuring his right shoulder.

At 6:18 p.m., CRS 53 reported a jet of acid bottles.

At 6:50 p.m., it was the mobile gendarmes who were targeted by pellet rifle fire.

At 8:10 p.m., police and gendarmes heard a "huge explosion" near the Post Office, avenue du Maréchal Sebastiani, then half a dozen others, damaging the windows of the building.

Fifty injured

Around 8:30 p.m., the hostile demonstrators are only a few dozen.

The return to calm will be observed around 10 p.m.

An "out of the ordinary" policing in Bastia which will have mobilized three squadrons of mobile gendarmes, three companies of CRS, local police personnel as well as a water launcher.

"The demonstration qualification is obsolete, it's a battle, with weapons that can kill," reports a police officer.

This confrontation will have lasted more than 5 hours.

According to our information, around fifty police officers and gendarmes were injured, four of them seriously: broken hand, arm pierced by shrapnel, broken teeth, broken nose. 

Finally, a relatively preserved human toll with regard to the story given by the CRS in their reports.

In total, the staff recorded more than 500 molotov cocktails thrown at the police during the evening and more than 3,000 tear gas and de-encirclement grenades fired by the CRS and the mobile gendarmes.

No assailant managed to enter the prefecture compound.

One person was arrested.

Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, must go to the Isle of Beauty on Wednesday and Thursday to restore calm there.