incidents between law enforcement and participants at the Plaine carnival refusing to leave the premises

Incidents broke out on the evening of Sunday March 17, from 10:15 p.m., Place Jean Jaurès, in Marseille, informs the Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters. The police took over this square and asked the hundreds of participants in the Plaine carnival to leave the premises. A prefectural decree authorized the organization of this annual event until 6:30 p.m., at which time participants had to disperse.

“Faced with the many projectiles and mortars thrown at the police”specifies the prefecture, the latter intervened “to disperse the hostile individuals and allow the intervention of the firefighters to extinguish the fire lit on the square”. The police used tear gas canisters and a water hose.

The prefecture indicates that small groups of individuals dispersed into adjacent streets where they installed barricades and burned trash cans, there were ten fires. All the participants dispersed shortly before midnight according to the prefecture, which indicates that two people were arrested and three police officers were slightly injured.

According to France Bleu Provence, nearly 9,000 people gathered on Place Jean-Jaurès this Sunday to take part in this annual carnival. In 2023, 16 people were arrested and 25 police officers injured following incidents on Sunday evening.