Nantes: demonstration against the labor law skids – The Point

protesters clashed with police Saturday in Nantes, on the occasion of a new mobilization against the labor law that brought together, in a very tense atmosphere, 2 600 people, according to the prefecture, 15 000, according to the CGT, and in which journalists were attacked.

Six people were arrested and several lines to the police station for identity checks, according to the prefecture. By early evening, there were small scattered groups in the city, but the bulk of the demonstration had dispersed while started, instead of Bouffay, around 19 pm, the 5th Night standing Nantes. About 300 people gathered in a circle, with a table in the middle covered with a banner “Solidarity against police violence.”

Pavers, stones, bottles and eggs

During the demonstration, the security forces have repeatedly been the target of various projectiles, paving, stones, bottles and eggs, was a journalist for Agence France-Presse. They responded by firing tear gas and making use of water hoses to prevent access to the downtown. In early demonstration, a group of 7 or 8 journalists, photographers and reporters images was attacked, chased and stoned by thirty very young, probably minor and did affiliation with any union, reported a photographer with Agence France-Presse, himself pursued. These young, masked faces, apparently trying to steal their equipment.

These young people also attacked, shortly before, a team of BFM TV that was direct. They did not manage to steal their equipment but one of the journalists received a punch and had a broken tooth, told one of the journalists of BFM TV, Pierre-Emmanuel Becet, the Agency France-Presse. urban violence scenes were repeated several times thereafter with groups of tens or even hundreds of young people who were trying to set up barricades with construction elements, or throwing projectiles at police before being pushed back with a lot of tear gas.

clouds of tear

first Commerce square, where a major tram station, then long before the CHU surrounded tear gas clouds, and then further east and closer to the city center, before the square Feydeau. Many street furniture have been degraded – burnt bus shelters, burnt trash – as well as banking and real estate agencies, including that of VINCI Immobilier, a subsidiary of the Vinci Group, the dealership airport future of the disputed project in Notre-Dame-des-Landes near Nantes.

in the early afternoon, a first procession, composed of about 200 people, mostly young, left the place of Bouffay, in the city center to join one of the Inter met on the island of Nantes. Before leaving, one of the participants explained the megaphone that the demonstration was organized to protest “against capitalism and social misery.” “We have nothing against the merchants of downtown, adults should supervise younger,” he added, while the shops and windows of banks had already been broken at previous events, the 5 April and March 31 in particular.