In Rennes, following the clashes on Friday evening, three people were taken into police custody and an investigation was opened.
Three men were taken into police custody after the clashes that occurred Friday evening in the center of Rennes during an unauthorized demonstration in reaction to the validation of the pension reform by the Constitutional Council, learned Agence France-Presse (AFP), Saturday with the prosecution. One of the men is suspected of “violence against a person holding public authority” and the other two of “destruction by dangerous means”, in this case fires from garbage cans, the public prosecutor told AFP. Republic of Rennes, Philippe Astruc.
These three police custody measures are not linked to the fire, Friday evening by demonstrators near Place Sainte-Anne, the facade of a police station and the door of a former convent converted into a center of congresses, underlined Mr. Astruc. Following what the prosecutor describes as “serious events”the prosecution seized the territorial direction of the judicial police of Rennes for degradation by fire of these two buildings, “under the qualification of degradation by dangerous means and association of criminals”.
The police station, empty at the time, was set on fire with burning garbage cans. The fire was extinguished after a few minutes after the intervention of a police water cannon. A few minutes later, shortly before 10 p.m., the demonstrators set fire to the door of the former Jacobin convent, a former religious building converted into a congress center. The start of the fire was also quickly brought under control with the intervention of the water cannon. “The damage and attacks this evening in Rennes against a police station and the Jacobins convent, by thugs determined to fight it out, are unacceptable”had reacted on Twitter the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. “The perpetrators will be prosecuted. »
A new demonstration against the pension reform is planned for Saturday afternoon in Rennes.