The investigation is progressing following the violent brawl that broke out on Monday, November 4th at a station in the Paris suburbs. The fight involved rival gangs who clashed with axes.
There were four victims, aged 16 and 17. Two are in a serious condition and two are slightly injured. The 16-year-old, identified as “of African origin,” was born in Guadeloupe. An axe was found at his home, and he is already known to the police.
This outburst of barbarism comes against a backdrop of rivalry between young people from Roissy-en-Brie and Ozoir-la-Ferrière, rekindled ten days ago by the beating of a young man from Ozoir. This episode led to what looked like an ambush on the morning of the start of the new school year, according to a witness on the train who told Le Parisien that he saw men in black hoods rush into the carriage and prevent the doors from closing by pulling the alarm. According to him, the victims were young people from Roissy, and the assailants knew that they usually travelled in the last carriage of the train. That is where the axe attack took place. “They knew that young people from Roissy got on at the back and were hiding at the beginning of the platform at that level,” explains the witness, who believes that it was a reprisal.
Some policemen have different hypotheses about the cities where the young people come from, but the conclusion is the same for everyone. As the article in Le Parisien points out, the gang war is certainly not over. “I also heard the friends of the injured shouting: ‘By Allah, we’re going to get even! We’re going to kill you,’” added the witness.
Fortunately, the very alarming assessment of the state of the victims published in the press on November 4th can be tempered. Although two of the victims were in a serious condition, their prognosis was not life-threatening. There were no axe wounds to the skull, but there were head wounds.
Valérie Pécresse, chairwoman of the Ile-de-France regional council and former presidential candidate, said:
The scourge of gang brawls is spreading throughout the country. I call on the Ministers of the Interior and Justice to coordinate their efforts to put an end to this spiral of impunity and violence. I have asked the SNCF to make its video surveillance tapes available to identify the perpetrators and put them out of action.
