Scenes of panic this Sunday evening in the Val-Fourré district, in Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines). As hundreds of people watched the England-Senegal World Cup round of 16 in the Post Office village hall, a cloud of smoke appeared above their heads around 8:30 p.m. Police allegedly threw tear gas canisters without the supporters understanding why.
In videos posted on social media, event organizers are calling for calm as a crowd pushes people towards the exit. For a time confined inside, the families finally manage to get out without anyone being hurt.
A complaint lodged with the police
The police deny any wrongdoing on their part. A little earlier in the evening, they intervened in the neighborhood for a neighborhood dispute. But the individual would have fled in the rue de la Fontaine, where the retransmission of the match took place. Taken to task in the street, targeted by jets of projectiles, the police would have replied with tear gas canisters to contain the crowd. Some would have come out of the village hall to fight it out.
“There were tear gas fired but not in the room, neither voluntarily nor involuntarily, specifies another police source. It was to repel the people who came out in large numbers to attack the police. The fumes penetrated inside because the doors were open. If it had been fired in the room, we would have found traces of the shots, there would have been injured by tinnitus, children seriously inconvenienced by the fumes, which is not the case. »
According to the first elements collected internally, in particular the hearing of the crews and the operation of a pedestrian camera carried by an agent, “the elements recovered deny a rumor according to which a tear gas canister would have been fired into the room”, indicates a source familiar with the matter. A complaint was still filed on Monday morning by the organizers of the event with the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN).