After the chaos of Sainte-Soline, legal proceedings accumulated. Two new complaints were filed Monday concerning protesters injured on March 25 during violent clashes in the Deux-Sèvres between opponents of the megabasins and gendarmes. Four procedures are now open, announced Tuesday, April 4 the prosecutor of Rennes.

These two new complaints concern a man born in 1995 who suffers in particular from a "trauma of the left foot with bone fracas that he attributes to a grenade of encirclement", with an ITT set at minimum 60 days, and a woman born in 2003, presenting a "very significant facial polytrauma and injuries to the legs", whose ITT is provisionally set at 100 days, said Philippe Astruc at a press conference.

The Rennes prosecutor's office is competent for military matters and, as such, has been responsible for these investigations involving gendarmes a priori.

Call for witnesses

Regarding the two men seriously injured during the banned demonstration, the vital prognosis of that of 34 years "remains engaged" while the 32-year-old person "would have come out of the coma and would have completed his recovery phase," added the prosecutor of Rennes, who seized the general inspectorate of the national gendarmerie to conduct the investigations.

"If I prefer for the moment a prosecutor's investigation, I do not exclude the opening of a judicial investigation in a second step (...) The qualifications retained at this stage are aggravated violence with an ITT greater than 8 days per person holding public authority and not assistance to a person in danger," said Philippe Astruc.

The first stage of the investigations will be to "determine with precision the origin of the injuries found" and then to establish "the possible causal link between the action of the gendarmes and these injuries," he added.

In particular, the prosecutor asked that "all the squadron leaders" present in Sainte-Soline be heard.

In addition to the seizure of recordings of conversations and videos of the gendarmerie, Philippe Astruc launched a call for witnesses so that "direct witnesses can make themselves known" and invited "those with videos or photos to provide a copy".

The March 25 rally around the disputed Sainte-Soline basin, which drew between 6,000 and 30,000 people, led to violent clashes between protesters and police.

With AFP

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