More than 2,200 people have been arrested and 1,800 scooters and motorcycles have been seized since the start of the year for urban rodeos, more than in 2021, according to figures from the Minister of the Interior released on Wednesday.
A total of 16,000 police operations have been carried out since January 2022. In 2021, there were 9,800 checks, 1,345 arrests and 1,200 motorized vehicles seized, the minister said.
“It is not a policy of figures, it is the activity of the police and gendarmerie services”,-he underlined during a visit to the police station in Créteil (Val-de-Marne), and “at the same time as we fight against rodeos, we fight against narcotics and we fight against stolen cars and motorcycles”.
On August 8, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced an intensification of controls throughout France against people performing urban rodeos.
Since that date, more than 150 scooters and motorcycles have been seized during nearly 3,000 police and gendarmerie operations, the minister said on Twitter on Tuesday, ensuring that as of Wednesday “each police station would carry out at least three anti-rodeo operations a day”.
On August 5, a seven-year-old child was seriously injured by an 18-year-old biker during an urban rodeo in Pontoise (Val-d’Oise).
In Marseille, a 19-year-old young man died Tuesday evening in Marseille after losing control of his motorcycle and hitting a pole while doing an urban rodeo.
As stated The Sunday Journal on August 14, after a nine-year fight, a Marseillaise exasperated by wild rodeos had the state condemned for inaction: “The territory was theirs, she explained.
If arrests take place, some, like the lawyer Pierre Gentillet, deplore not the absence of laws to fight against this scourge, since they already exist to punish this crime, but the lack of places of prisons which could allow its effective application:
1 year in prison and 15,000th fine for urban rodeos.
The problem is not the law but its application: almost never effective prison when the delinquents are condemned.
It’s necessary :
1) deport foreign offenders
2) build prisons@CNEWS #hdpros pic.twitter.com/7eZmORYF1b— Pierre Gentillet (@Pierre_GTIL) August 8, 2022
On the left side, often accused on the right of laxity with regard to the perpetrators of crimes and offences, more and more political figures within it are keen to make known their political will to fight against these nuisances. Also, on May 31, LFI deputy François Ruffin, calling on the police to guarantee the “everyday tranquility”wrote on his Facebook page: “Being on the left is not closing your eyes to it, on the contrary: it is guaranteeing this peace to all citizens, this right to privacy, to be at home, not disturbed”.
On the question of urban rodeos, Benjamin Lucas, deputy Nupes, reported on August 8 at the microphone of Europe 1 the feeling “d’humiliation” local residents faced with these “terrible nuisance”, urging the government to “moving from words to action”:
Benjamin Lucas, deputy Nupes, on urban rodeos: “The confiscation of vehicles, it must be considered very seriously” #EuropeMidi pic.twitter.com/KuYIto1ntP
— Europe 1 ???????????? (@Europe1) August 8, 2022