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New Year’s Eve party with 2,500 people in France is completely out of control
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New Year’s Eve Balance: Not as Calm as It Has Been in Decades
Germany started the new year amid the crown crisis as calmly as it has not in decades. Hardly anyone on the streets, less fireworks and cops and rescuers relaxed accordingly. And yet there were also numerous injuries that night.
In France, thousands gathered illegally to celebrate the turn of the year. When the police tried to end a party in Lieuron, they were violently attacked and evicted. The party continues a day later.
meIn western France, an illegal New Year’s Eve party with around 2,500 participants got completely out of hand: despite Corona requirements and the curfew, ravers from different regions of France and abroad celebrated in a small town of Brittany.
When the police wanted to end the party, they were violently attacked and evicted. The raver party with techno music continued on Friday night, as observed by a journalist from the AFP news agency. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called a special meeting on the situation.
When police wanted to break up the illegal party in an empty warehouse in Lieuron south of Rennes on Thursday evening, they faced “violent hostility”, as the prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Brittany announced on Friday.
Lieuron in France: gendarmes block access to the place of the big illegal party
Source: dpa / Jean-Francois Monier
During the riots, a police vehicle was set on fire and three others were damaged. Bottles and stones were thrown, officials were slightly injured.
Police were stationed at intersections near the party Friday night and kept newly arrived partygoers out of the driveway, as an AFP photographer observed. According to the gendarmerie, those who left the premises were “systematically” controlled and more than 200 parking tickets were distributed. A helicopter had also flown over the area during the day.
Many of the techno fans at the party were not wearing masks and were not keeping a safe distance. Helpers distributed disinfectant gel and masks to contain the risk of spreading the coronavirus. One raver reported that the party should last until Saturday; others even went as of Tuesday. Deputy Florian Bachelier from the region spoke of a “shame for our country.
The prosecution opened an investigation into the violent clashes. Interior Minister Darmanin wanted to discuss how a “normal situation” could be restored on Friday night in Paris, as he wrote on the Twitter online service.
An illegal party was also broken up in Marseille on New Year’s Eve; according to authorities, 300 people had attended the party. Security forces found nearly 120 celebrators in an empty hangar in the Seine-et-Marne region east of Paris.
A massive increase in corona infections is feared in France. On Friday, the number of new infections in 24 hours was again around 20,000. Now the nightly curfew imposed to contain the coronavirus in France, which was also applied on New Year’s Eve, will begin in particularly affected areas from Saturday at 6 p.m. and not at 8 p.m.
The curfew until 6 am applies in 15 regions of France, as the Paris government announced on Friday. For example, the department of the Alpes-Maritimes, including Nice, is affected. The other affected regions are mainly in the east of the country, Paris remains exempt from the new regulation for now.
“The virus continues to spread in France,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal said in Paris. A reopening of theaters, cinemas and concert halls originally planned on January 7 is out of the question.
The government spokesman also rejected criticism of delays in vaccinations against the corona virus. When told that only 330 vaccinations had been done, he replied that a vaccination campaign designed for six months could not be evaluated after “a few days”.
