“The police and gendarmes only respond to people who are violent. They would never be the first to go out into the streets in Sainte-Soline, find people in a field and attack them." Here is what the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, said during his hearing on Wednesday by the Law Commission on the management of law enforcement.
A report broadcast Thursday evening on France 2 nevertheless contradicts the version of the authorities on the clashes which took place on March 25 in Deux-Sèvres, where the police would have only responded to the violence of certain demonstrators.
Produced for the program "Complément d'Enquête", the report shows that the first shots of tear gas were fired to disperse the procession deemed the most radical from 12:17 p.m. However, according to the official chronology of the report submitted to the Ministry of inside by the head of the national gendarmerie, the clashes between radical demonstrators and the police did not begin until 1:05 p.m., with "throwing of Molotov cocktails and firing of fireworks at the gendarmerie" .
"And damn, they shoot!" Are they jerks or what? »
In the "Complément d'Enquête" report, the colonel directing the operations around the Sainte-Soline water reservoir, disputed by the demonstrators, clearly distinguishes a procession composed of "ultras" and another "rather family" .
At 12:17 p.m., the officer ordered gendarmes mounted on quads to carry out "dispersal fire" on the first procession, which was still a kilometer from the basin. "These are the first tear gas canisters of the day", say the journalists of France 2, whose images then show no violence coming from the demonstrators.
Half an hour later, the procession deemed peaceful arrives near the water reserve. The colonel orders again to carry out "dispersal fire" on the other procession considered more violent. But the gendarmes are on the wrong target: the quads stop at the height of the first procession and tear gas canisters are fired. "And damn, they shoot!" Are they jerks or what? “says the officer in front of the camera. "Wasn't that the right procession?" asks a journalist. "No," replies the Colonel.
It is then 12:48 p.m. According to journalists from Agence France-Presse present at the scene, these shots on the peaceful procession triggered the clashes. They left 47 injured on the gendarmes' side, according to the prosecution, and 200, including 40 serious, on the demonstrators' side - including one remaining between life and death -, according to the organizers.
