Several hundred people, mostly masked and hooded, marched Thursday evening in the center of Rennes to denounce the immigration law, breaking the windows of several businesses, some of which were looted, according to AFP journalists on site. . This unauthorized demonstration, called by several far-left movements and students from Rennes 2 University, brought together around 450 people according to the prefecture.
The prosecution announced during the night the opening of an “investigation into damage and theft during a meeting”. This investigation is entrusted to the “territorial crime division of the DIPN” (Interdepartmental Directorate of the National Police), Rennes prosecutor Philippe Astruc said on X. According to the magistrate, the findings of the damage by judicial police officers are “in progress. Probably around fifteen businesses affected”.
A tense atmosphere
Leaving in the calm of Place Sainte-Anne around 8:30 p.m., the procession crisscrossed the city center behind a banner proclaiming “racist law anti-fascist response”. The atmosphere quickly became tense and demonstrators, often dressed in black and with their faces hidden, broke several business windows and attempted to set fire to a bank branch on Place Hoche, according to a journalist on site.
A Crazy Republic clothing store was also targeted by demonstrators who smashed the window and took clothes. Several other stores were targets of looting. Many trash cans were set on fire and cars damaged. Barricades made of trash cans and construction grills were erected in several places in the city center. The police used tear gas to try to push back the protesters.
“A lot of sadness, anger and incomprehension this evening in the face of the damage perpetrated by hooded extremists in the city center of Rennes,” lamented the city’s mayor, Nathalie Appéré, in a series of messages on -Twitter). “I send all my solidarity and all my support to the traders whose work tools have been vandalized,” continued the elected official. “We are at their side.”
A law promulgated in the coming hours
This demonstration took place a few hours after the Constitutional Council largely censored the immigration law. The government announced that it was preparing to promulgate the text “in the coming hours” to apply the first measures “from this weekend”. During the day, several hundred farmers on board around a hundred tractors demonstrated peacefully in front of the Rennes prefecture to demand rapid action in the face of the crisis they are going through.
The city center of Rennes had been the scene of numerous urban violence, marked by clashes with the police and multiple damage to businesses or hotels, at the beginning of 2023 during major demonstrations against pension reform.