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11:20 a.m. : The hearing of Gérald Darmanin by the law commission of the National Assembly is now over. It will have lasted two hours. About twenty questions were put to him by deputies of all persuasions. In summary, the Minister of the Interior explained that there was no problem of maintaining order but that the police must respond to demonstrators “ultra-left”particularly “violent”, whether during demonstrations against the pension reform or against the “mega-basin” of Sainte-Soline. He also defended the Brav-M, this police brigade with much criticized methods, whose dissolution is demanded by a petition.
11:19 a.m. : The deputies continue to put their questions to Gérald Darmanin on his management of the maintenance of order. “Has a competition been opened to find out who would most often utter the term ‘ultra-left’?”, asks the Socialist MP for Saône-et-Loire, Cécile Untermaier, ironically, in response to questions from right-wing and far-right MPs.
10:30 a.m. : In total“24,000 vehicles were checked at the borders (…) 67 petanque balls were seized, 7 firework mortars”, continues Gérald Darmanin auditioned at the moment in the National Assembly. Some “3,200 gendarmes and police officers were deployed in particular around the basins, but not simply”. An intervention to follow in our live.
10:27 : Some 41 judicial investigations have been opened at the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) and 4 at the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie (IGGN) since January and the start of the mobilization against the pension reform, said the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, about the maintenance of order, before the law commission of the National Assembly.
10:18 a.m. : The LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis Thomas Portes denounces the “terror” sown “every evening in the streets of Paris” by the Brav-M, this police unit much criticized in recent weeks. “Will it take a new Malik Oussékine to make you hear reason?”, launches the deputy, under the boos of a part of the opposition.
10:15 a.m. : For his part, the president of the Republicans, Eric Ciotti, denounces a “unleashing of violence on the part of the far left which is part of a strategy to destabilize the institutions of the Republic.” He asserts that the “people” present in Sainte-Soline “had only one objective: to kill the police.”
10:11 a.m. : “There is not a country in Europe where there have been so many deaths or people in a coma during operations to maintain order (…) beatings with truncheons are given on all types of demonstrators”, denounces Elsa Faucillon, communist deputy for Hauts-de-Seine.
10:11 a.m. : The deputies put their questions to the Minister of the Interior, who is currently being heard on the use of force by the police and the gendarmes, during the demonstrations against the pension reform and during the clashes in Saint-Soline (Deux- Sevres).
09:52 : The Uprisings of the Earth group, at the forefront of the mobilization against the Deux-Sèvres mega-basin, “is not an association”insists Gérald Darmanin, who speaks more of a “de facto group”. “A large part of its members were already followed by intelligence, from Notre-Dame-des-Landes. And several mentioned calls for violence, in particular against republican institutions”.
09:44 : The Minister of the Interior recalls that a “new plan for the maintenance of order has been drafted and validated by the Council of State”. “The difficulty is the training in maintaining order for police officers and gendarmes: there is a lack of squadrons, since 15 have been abolished and it takes time to recreate police and gendarme positions, specializing in maintaining order” , explains Gérald Darmanin.
09:42 : “The intelligence services evoke 42 projects contested by the ultra-left on the national territory, of which 17 would be likely to lead to radicalization”, continues the Minister of the Interior in the National Assembly.
09:38 : The Minister of the Interior ensures that “readultra-left is not only a French subject”, recalling that overflows were observed during the G20 in Hamburg, in 2017, or in London in 2009, by these groups “radicalized”.
09:29 : The Minister of the Interior believes that the first scuffles in Sainte-Soline with the gendarmes began at 12:40 p.m. on Sunday March 25, when the latter received cocktails of mortars and they responded with tear gas.
09:32 : “There is no doubt that several hundred people radicalized to the ultra-left, followed by the intelligence services, were present on the Sainte-Soline site”assures the Minister of the Interior.
09:26 : In total“24,000 vehicles were checked at the borders (…) 67 petanque balls were seized, 7 firework mortars”, continues Gérald Darmanin auditioned at the moment in the National Assembly. Some “3,200 gendarmes and police officers were deployed in particular around the basins, but not simply”.
09:21 : The Minister of the Interior returns to the violence in Sainte-Soline on March 25. In 2022, an anti-basin demonstration had already done “61 wounded among the gendarmes, several very seriously”emphasizes Gérald Darmanin. “It is therefore nourished by these unfortunate experiences of 2022 that we had prepared this meeting in Sainte-Soline” which was the subject “a ban from the prefecture”, he recalls.
09:14 : Since March 16, Gérald Darmanin has counted 1,851 arrests and 299 attacks against public institutions (prefectures, sub-prefectures, town halls, etc.).
09:13 : Since March 16, the Minister of the Interior assures that the intelligence services have observed a very strong mobilization “from the ultra-left, especially in the west of France but also in Paris”.
09:13 : “Almost all of the demonstrations in France are taking place without incident.”
The Minister presents a slide show on the maintenance of order, in which he demonstrates that since January 19, 8 national days of action have taken place without major incident.
09:09 : The Minister of the Interior is in the National Assembly. He’s going to speak to the Law Enforcement Management Law Commission. You can follow his intervention in our live. My colleague Juliette Campion joins me to follow this intervention.
08:50 : @Ccesoir: “To trivialize the qualifier of terrorist to qualify political adversaries, it is the prerogative of authoritarian regimes” @ChloeRidel, spokesperson for the Socialist Party The rest:➡️https://t.co/NCzFcC9884🎧en podcast https://t.co/iA4QuHC6hH https://t.co/poxybxU4rt
08:49 : “To trivialize the qualifier of terrorist to qualify political adversaries, it is the prerogative of authoritarian regimes”notably denounced Chloé Ridel, spokesperson for the PS, on the set of “C this evening”. “All of this stems from a strategy of demonization of the Nupes and the forces of the left, which has only one consequence: the de-demonization of the RN”.
08:51 : “Terrorism has many meanings. And the purpose of terror is to push back politically”justifies the Minister of the Interior after accusing “part of the extreme left” of “intellectual terrorism”, in the JDD. This statement had led to a flurry of criticism from the left, but also from associations and researchers.
(XOSE BOUZAS / HANS LUCAS / AFP)