Vandalized shops, two burnt cars, clashes with the police: a regional demonstration against the pension reform, Saturday in Rennes, was once again marked by numerous clashes, the day after violence in the historic center.
More than a thousand people, mostly young people, had gathered calmly at the beginning of the afternoon on Place de la République, at the call in particular of Rennes collectives on social networks. An "unauthorized" demonstration, according to the prefecture.
Less than half an hour after the departure of the procession, the situation began to degenerate, noted AFP journalists.
Targeted by stones, bottles and sometimes fireworks launched by young people dressed in black, the police responded with numerous tear gas shots and the intervention of water cannons.
"The crowds brought together 1,200 people, at their strongest, including several hundred grimaced thugs, ultras and violent demonstrators", writes the prefecture, reporting eleven arrested individuals who "will be presented to the judicial authority".
“An injured mobile policeman was taken to hospital and two demonstrators were taken care of by firefighters. Their state of health is not worrying,” adds the prefecture.
On the Place de la République where they were confined, thugs notably vandalized a CIC bank branch. Furniture and computers were taken out onto the sidewalk and set on fire, as were many garbage cans.
They also ransacked the lobby of a nearby Mercure hotel, tagging "the bourgeois at the RSA" on the facade of the establishment.
The demonstration was framed by a large police force, the day after a series of overflows in the center of the city where the doors of a police station and a former convent converted into a congress center had been set on fire, and many storefronts vandalized businesses. An investigation was opened and entrusted to the judicial police.
"Radical groups from all over France ransacked our city center again this afternoon (...) How far will this destructive madness go?", Was moved the PS mayor of Rennes Nathalie Appéré, in a announcement on Saturday evening.
"The damage amounts to hundreds of thousands of euros", she laments, believing that "the State must recognize the particular situation of our city" and put in place financial measures to help the traders affected.
The mayor of Rennes also wants the sustainability of additional police resources, such as those which were deployed on Saturday afternoon, in this case the CRS 8 specializing in urban violence and based in the Paris region.
"I don't want to be the generation that let this reform pass," Benoît, 24, told AFP, who came to march again on Saturday after participating in almost all the protests against the pension reform. .
The young man expresses his anger at having discovered on waking that President Emmanuel Macron had promulgated the law overnight, a few hours after the validation of the essentials of the reform by the Constitutional Council.
"Learning when you wake up that he did it quietly in the night is to abuse. It continues in the tradition of someone totalitarian and who does not want to respect popular speech", he adds.
The center of Rennes has regularly been the scene of numerous violence between the police and demonstrators, accompanied by damage to shops or street furniture, since the start of the movement against pension reform.
15/04/2023 21:03:35 - Rennes (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
