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POLICE

Four police hurt in clashes with Saint-Etienne ultras

Four French police officers were hurt during clashes outside Saint-Etienne's stadium after Monaco crushed the home team, police and local government said on Saturday.

Published: 16 December 2017 16:06 CET
Four police hurt in clashes with Saint-Etienne ultras
Saint-Etienne's supporters clash with police following the French L1 football match between Saint-Etienne and Monaco. Photo: Romain Lafabregue/AFP

The Ligue 1 game was played on Friday with the two stands behind the goals in the Stade Geoffroy Guichard closed as punishment for incidents involving Saint-Etienne's ultras during another heavy home defeat in the derby against Lyon on November 5th.

After the match in the central city on Friday, which Saint-Etienne lost 4-0, police said around 200 people gathered outside the entry to the stadium looking for trouble and vandalising property. The ultras started throwing stones at police, who responded by firing teargas grenades.

Among the police who drove the crowd away, two were taken to hospital for treatment, one of them with a hand injury which is expected to keep him off duty for three weeks.

The only supporter arrested, a 21-year-old, was held overnight and was due in court in Saint-Etienne on Saturday afternoon on charges of throwing a projectile at the police.

PROTESTS

Clashes mar rally against far right in north-west France

Riot police clashed with demonstrators in the north-western French city of Rennes on Thursday in the latest rally against the rise of the far-right ahead of a national election this month.

Published: 21 June 2024 08:58 CEST
Clashes mar rally against far right in north-west France

The rally ended after dozens of young demonstrators threw bottles and other projectiles at police, who responded with tear gas.

The regional prefecture said seven arrests were made among about 80 people who took positions in front of the march through the city centre.

The rally was called by unions opposed to Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party (RN), which is tipped to make major gains in France’s looming legislative elections. The first round of voting is on June 30.

“We express our absolute opposition to reactionary, racist and anti-Semitic ideas and to those who carry them. There is historically a blood division between them and us,” Fabrice Le Restif, regional head of the FO union, one of the organisers of the rally, told AFP.

Political tensions have been heightened by the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a Paris suburb, for which two 13-year-old boys have been charged. The RN has been among political parties to condemn the assault.

Several hundred people protested against anti-Semitism and ‘rape culture’ in Paris in the latest reaction.

Dominique Sopo, president of anti-racist group SOS Racisme, said it was “an anti-Semitic crime that chills our blood”.

Hundreds had already protested on Wednesday in Paris and Lyon amid widespread outrage over the assault.

The girl told police three boys aged between 12 and 13 approached her in a park near her home in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie on Saturday, police sources said.

She was dragged into a shed where the suspects beat and raped her, “while uttering death threats and anti-Semitic remarks”, one police source told AFP.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country outside Israel and the United States.

At Thursday’s protest, Arie Alimi, a lawyer known for tackling police brutality and vice-president of the French Human Rights League, said voters had to prevent the far-right from seizing power and “installing a racist, anti-Semitic and sexist policy”.

But he also said he was sad to hear, “anti-Semitic remarks from a part of those who say they are on the left”.

President Emmanuel Macron called the elections after the far-right thrashed his centrist alliance in European Union polls. The far-right and left-wing groups have accused each other of being anti-Semitic.

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