It is Saturday night in L’Haÿ Les Roses, a town south of Paris, and its mayor, Vincent Jeanbrun, is in the town hall monitoring the strong wave of riots that France has been experiencing since last Wednesday. In his house are his wife and his children, three and seven years old. At dawn, several hooded individuals ram a car into the house. The woman is injured in the leg when she tries to flee with her children from the back.
The attack takes place on the fifth night of violence and looting in the country after the death on Tuesday of Nahel, a 17-year-old boy, shot by a police officer at a checkpoint in Nanterre, a town on the outskirts of Paris. . This is the event that unleashes anger, first from the neighborhoods, and then from the cities. The attack on Jeanbrun has marked a turning point, has “crossed a red line”. At a time when in some areas tranquility is beginning to recover after days of riots and the number of detainees is falling, the attacks that exist are more targeted. Nahel’s death was far away, but many take advantage of it to carry out their violent acts. .
The attackers distrust the institutions. The main pillars of the French Republic are education, justice and public order. That is why they attack police stations, schools and city halls, their symbols.
“A red line has been crossed,” said the prefect of the Paris Police, Laurent Nuñez. Since the riots began, there have been hundreds of attacks on public institutions and buildings, including city halls. “Tonight a limit has been crossed in horror and ignominy,” said the politician, who has just been appointed spokesman for the Republican party. “I will not back down and I will continue to defend the Republic,” he said on Twitter.
It is noon in L’Haÿ Les Roses, a town of 32,000 inhabitants, apparently calmer than other neighborhoods on the Parisian outskirts that have been the focus of riots these days. The street where the mayor’s house is located, in an area with terraced houses, is still cordoned off and protected on both sides by several police patrols.