In a recording, a Samu operator said he had received from the command “the order not to send” help to the area where the wounded were. The prefect of Deux-Sèvres affirms that this decision was taken for security reasons.
The controversy surrounding the intervention of relief during a rally against the “mega-basin” of Saint-Soline does not fall. The families of the two seriously injured plunged into a coma filed a complaint for “attempted murder” and “obstructing rescue”, Wednesday, March 29. The day before, a recording by the League for Human Rights revealed that relief workers had not been authorized to intervene quickly with the injured on Saturday.
The Rennes public prosecutor’s office, in charge of the investigation by the IGGN (General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie) into these two serious cases, will have to shed light on “the conditions of evacuation and medical care”, as he explained to franceinfo. Here are the questions that arise around the arrival of firefighters and Samu on site, deemed too late by the organizers.
Who was in command there?
This is one of the questions that the Rennes prosecutor’s office will have to answer: “What were the precise methods of implementing law enforcement operations?” In a telephone recording from the League for Human Rights (LDH) consulted by franceinfo, an Samu operator says he received “the order not to send (…) a helicopter or Smur medium on the spot”while several injuries were reported, including “at least one injured whose vital prognosis [était] engaged”, according The world. Questioned by a general practitioner and three LDH lawyers, the Samu operator assures: “No, it’s not the prefecture that prohibits access, I tell you that it’s the command on the spot.”
In law enforcement operations, several actors have “responsibilities” And “specific obligations”, defined in the National Law Enforcement Scheme (SNMO). Namely, the prefectural authority, here the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres, which can be “present on the ground” “on the most complex and sensitive operations”and the Director of Order Services (DSO), “generally the territorial chief of the police or the gendarmerie”. In Sainte-Soline, the gendarmerie was in charge of operations. Assisted by a “head of operations” (CSO), the DSO may, “at any time modify, suspend or cancel its instructions according to the evolution of the situation”. Clearly, the tactical scheme is not set in stone from the start of operations.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, contacted by franceinfo, the chain of command is clear: “There is a command center, at the head of which is the administrative authority, namely the prefecture.” The communication service of the gendarmerie (Sirpa), he did not wish to speak on the chain of command that day. For her part, the prefect Emmanuelle Dubée returned the ball to the police. In a “hostile context, it is up to law enforcement to define whether the arrival of an emergency vehicle at a certain point is possible or not”she said.
Did the security forces obstruct the arrival of help?
The League for Human Rights and the families of the injured accuse the police of having delayed the intervention of relief and the treatment of the most serious cases. In the LDH recording, a firefighter tells the GP: “I have just had the Samu on site who told me ‘we are not sending anyone there, the victim assembly point is at the Sainte-Soline church, once they are there, the commitment means will be decided’.”
According to Farnam Faranpour, head of the emergency unit at Niort hospital interviewed by France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine, “there was no gendarmerie roadblock to prevent relief access”. On the other hand, he recognizes the difficulties in reaching the most seriously injured, in particular the two men who are today between life and death. “There was a first call to the firefighters who left, but the geolocation did not make it possible to find the place. So we waited for other calls to specify the place and we finally sent the Smur de Ruffec which was the closest to the place”, explains this emergency doctor. When the team arrived, it was stopped by injured demonstrators who needed treatment, says France 3.
“Our interest is not that there are injuredsays one at the Ministry of the Interior. That would imply that state officials are inherently malevolent.”
Did the military doctors intervene only for the wounded gendarmes?
The entourage of Gérald Darmanin affirms that “the most radical people did not hesitate to attack a GIGN doctor, who was attacked”. Did he intervene only for the wounded on the side of the forces of order? “His primary function is the gendarmes, but he can intervene for others”, we answer Place Beauvau.
Emmanuelle Dubée confirms the intervention of a doctor from the gendarmerie “who notably rescued an injured participant in absolute emergency”. “He was the target of projectiles when he left while he was giving first aid, details the prefect. If the transcription of the article [du Monde] suggests that the military doctors did not intervene for the benefit of the participants in the rally, it is clear that this assertion is false.”
Was the situation calm for at least “thirty minutes”?
Still in the recording, the doctor cites the observers of the Human Rights League present on the spot and according to whom the situation is “calme for thirty minutes” and so “that it is possible to intervene”. “I agree with you, you are not the first to tell us, the problem is that it is at the discretion of the police”answers the Samu operator.
“It was never completely calm, opposes the Ministry of the Interior. The most radical groups were still there.” Without coming forward, the prefect considers for her part that it is not “not surprising that, if these security conditions were not met, the police were able, for certain geolocations and in certain periods of time, to indicate that an ambulance dispatch was not possible in the ‘immediate.”
Patrick Baudouin, president of the LDH, maintains on franceinfo that “What results from the recordings and the actual situation on the ground is that it was an area that had been completely safe for some time, perfectly accessible, without any risk for the emergency services and any difficulty of access. “We have the elements which tend to prove that there was no assistance to anyone in danger”, he adds. Magistrate Evelyne Sire-Marin, member of the LDH office, hopes that the investigation will shed light on this point.
For its part, the Samu of the department remained cautious about its conditions of intervention throughout the operation. “Be aware, however, that sending an ambulance to the confrontation zone (called the exclusion zone) with oxygen is not recommended with the risk of explosion”, he argued on Twitter.