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Hunting the Opponent : French Police Shoot With Flashball Guns Demonstrators in

non | 09.07.2009 22:08 | Free Spaces | Repression | World

After the eviction of a squat named the "Clinique" in Montreuil, near Paris, police set an ambush to protesters and shot them with flashball guns aiming at their heads. One of the protesters has lost an eye.




Wednesday, July 8th, the police and local Swat team evicted a squat in Montreuil (very East of Paris), the "Clinique", an empty building in front of an open-air market occupied since january. The inhabitants were making many collective activities, workshops opened to the local population : a cine-club, a street radio, a free canteen, concerts, duties to organize collectively facing welfare institutions, owners and housing problems.

During the evening, a street canteen and a gathering were organized to protest against this eviction, in a pedestrian area close to the squat. At 10 p.m demonstrators headed on to the Clinique, lit fireworks, started to talk to the three guardsmen of the newly walled up squat. In ambush, cops charged at demonstrators without warning and shot them with flashball guns ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash-ball), aiming at their heads. Five people got hit from torso to head. One of them got hit in the eye. Brought in emergency at the hospital, he had a surgery, but his eye couldn't be saved.

Three demonstrators are still under arrest after 24 hours.

So many people have had irreversible harms cause of the use of those weapons. During the past year, in France, at least three demonstrators have been hit in the eye : a 17 year old college kid in Brittany in a demo past autumn, a toulousan who was taking part to an expropriation in a supermarket this spring and now, our friend.

To get more flashball guns, police argued that those guns were non-lethal and that there use would be strictly supervised. Facts prove the contrary : empowered by their impunity, cops use everyday those guns, deliberately ignoring the so-called "proportional response", shooting to hurt, often at very close range.

How come journalists, politicians, spoke persons from the police can still be surprised when cops brutally assault poor, precarious, protesters of all kind, targeting their heads and, at the same time be surprised, when not shocked, when those being shot decide to use guns to defend themselves ?

In France, lately, public debates echoed the increase in the number of people sent ot custody under charge of "verbal assault, rebellion, violences" against policemen, after a demo or an ID control. Now another side of police function is clearly enlightened : to terrorize anormals, opponents, to dissuade any disobedience, one's should shoot in the head.

We'll never approve that. We call everyone to oppose to this new escalation of police violence.

Rage and solidarity.

From Montreuil

In French, see :

 http://juralibertaire.over-blog.com/article-33646976.html

 http://laclinique.over-blog.net

non

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

scary

09.07.2009 22:55

helmets a must for demos then... very sorry to hear about the loss of a commrades eye, apologies if this seems pedantic but the way the article was phrased seem to suggest the police are taking the law into their own hands and not following orders from government. i don't know french political system but assume it's similar to here (possibly wrongly) and intimidation is neccesarry especially when we step out of line, what were the fire works all about? i hope it wasn't used by the police as an excuse to fire

anarchogeordie


Firework mortars

10.07.2009 12:59

I'm just guessing from the French news reports.

An empty building, the former radiological clinic in Montreuil (42 boulevard Chanzy, 93100 tel: 48583400) owned by an investment fund and on the market for over £3 million, was occupied since January 28 2009. It was turned into a social centre and squat and was just stormed.

These French riot police were CRS (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité) one of the two types of riot police along with the Gendarmerie Mobile. The Gendarmerie are quasi military French police funded to the tune of 8 billion euros a year. They are brave enough to fight students but were not quite brave enough to fight the Nazis, whereas the CRS aren't brave enough to even fights students in a fair fight, hence the 'less-lethal' weaponary, a local alternative to the US cattle-prod branded as 'Taser'.

The fireworks lit in the article don't appear on the video but from the context were presumably just celebratory fireworks. Fireworks are used in French demos though to target the police, fired as mortars through plastic piping. It's not any more sophisticated or dangerous a weapon as when fireworks were first used as a weapon by the Chinese, and I haven't read or heard of anyone losing an eye from the tactic, but being shot at with fireworks is scary, the combination of noise and light more than the actual risk. Maybe that is why the French developed the flash-gun.

 http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2009/06/16/villiers-le-bel-au-bord-de-l-implosion_1207503_3224.html

 http://fr.meilleursagents.com/prix-immobilier/m2/boulevard-chanzy-2011688/42/

Danny


Appropriate force

10.07.2009 14:43

This is the only way to deal with squatters. Personally, I would use nerve gas.

AH


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