The deputy of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella was visiting this Sunday, September 25, 2022, in Bruz, south of Rennes, in Ille-et-Vilaine, during his campaign for the presidency of his political party. He had an appointment with nearly 300 far-right activists on a farm, a few hundred meters from the Parc des Expositions in Rennes. But before his arrival, between 150 and 200 ultra-left demonstrators gathered to block the arrival of the deputy RN. For two hours, police and demonstrators clashed on departmental 34, slightly injuring a CRS.
– Joel Le Gall
11 a.m., a hundred antifas met at the Parc des Expositions in Rennes to go together, smoke bombs in hand, to the place of Jordan Bardella’s meeting. After about thirty minutes, the demonstrators find themselves facing the roadblock of the police, about sixty gendarmes and CRS. This is when the confrontation begins. The ultra-left group launches on the forces of order stones, molotov cocktails, rockets and fireworks. Some try to create a barrage of fire with pallets while others try to break into the farmhouse, Jordan Bardella’s meeting place. A CRS will be slightly injured during the clashes. Another major damage: a security guard’s car was vandalized. The interested party is still not present.
They would have been more numerous, we would not have been able to manage the situation”, underlines a gendarme present on the spot.
Faced with this intensity of confrontation, the prefecture of Ille-et-Vilaine asks the deputy of the National Rally to cancel his meeting. The latter refuses. “Democracy must not submit to the decisions and violence of the ultra-left”, declares the candidate for the presidency of his party. For him, “the prefecture did absolutely nothing to ensure the safety of the militants, terrorized by this violence”.
The prefecture of Ille-et-Vilaine for its part ensures “that the security forces mobilized during this day succeeded in controlling the procession of antifas”as explained by the sub-prefect of Saint-Malo Philippe Brugnot, on duty this Sunday. “Jordan Bardella was able to hold his meeting in adequate conditions”specifies the sub-prefect.
– Joel Le Gall
Around 1 p.m., when Jordan Bardella arrived at his meeting, the members of the radical ultra-left dispersed, in particular thanks to the reinforcement of around fifty gendarmes from Ille-et-Vilaine. But when he returned to Rennes, the risk of a skid was still relevant. Thirty demonstrators were waiting at Place Sainte-Anne the moment to go to Rennes station, place of departure of Jordan Bardella. In the end, no movement took place.
An investigation has been opened by the Rennes prosecutor with the Rennes research brigade in order to identify the perpetrators of these facts, concerning the CRS who was slightly injured and the car ransacked by the demonstrators.