what we know from the investigation

The collapsed roof of the house bears witness to the violence of the explosion and the fire that followed in the small village of La Chapelle (Allier). It was 1 p.m. when a brigade of gendarmes came to arrest a man at his home to take him into custody after an attack. The neighborhood then heard two explosions. “We saw that it burned everywhere. (…) With everything that was happening, the police, the ambulances, we could see that it was serious“says a neighbor.

One dead and three officers seriously injured

The toll of the explosion is very heavy: the suspect died, three gendarmes were seriously burned, one of them is between life and death. Four other soldiers who came to help them were more lightly affected. They say they smelled a strong smell of gasoline at the time of the intervention. The suspect, aged 38, was detained at his home with an electronic bracelet, for driving under the influence of narcotics. He had convicted a dozen times for traffic offences, violence and insults.