Several hundred young people defied police on Friday evening in the city centre …
Several hundred young people defied the police and damaged many public facilities, bank branches and stores in the centre of Rennes on Friday night, after the evacuation at the dawn of a municipal hall, renamed “House of the People “by opponents of the Labour law, after twelve days of occupation.
The occupants evacuated at dawn with a large-scale attack by gendarmes, had called for a new rally around 8pm on the Place Sainte-Anne in the historic centre of Rennes. Initially, it started calm, but then trouble and clashes broke out among some of the 200 young people and the security forces that prevented them from re-entering the places they were dislodged from earlier in the day.
Une agence bancaire explosée à #Rennes pour la manif pic.twitter.com/HtXQRJwlkU
— Jérôme Gicquel (@jgicquel) May 13, 2016
Windows of a broken police, bank branch vandalized
Then, around 9.30pm, while the number of protesters, many of whom were hooded, was much bigger, some began to attack security cameras and fences of the subway construction site. The police responded with tear gas and demonstrators headed towards the city centre, some committing numerous damage in their wake.
The windows of a police station were smashed, several bank branches which had their windows boarded up, with wood, were attacked, with the wood torn off and windows smashed and interiors ransacked. Clothing shops and the local Parti Socialiste (PS) offices also had their windows broken. When the socialist town hall was attacked in his turn, the security forces intervened to expel the protesters thugs.
Le commissariat de la rue de Penhoet visé par les manifestants à #Rennes pic.twitter.com/9r6ulNehiL
— Jérôme Gicquel (@jgicquel) May 13, 2016
“Actions commando very violent”
Several bystanders were violently abused by the rioters. “You’re crazy, stop, I did three years in Dachau, tortured by the Nazis and I tell you, stop! ” yelled in vain an old man who was drowned out by the chants of the protestors. A banner demonstrators read: “God forgives, not us.”
“We had to deal with very violent commando action prepared with highly mobile demonstrators sometimes divided into several groups,” said the Deputy Prefect of the western defense and security area Patrick Dallennes, adding that two people were arrested. “We forget completely the claims against the labour law, that is violence against the economy, institutions”.
By 11pm most of the demonstrators had dispersed, with many hiding their dark clothes in bags. The proposed rally against extreme “police violence” for Saturday afternoon, has been banned by the prefecture of Ille-et-Vilaine.
