A bus and cars were set on fire, and a CCTV camera damaged. New violence broke out on March 27 in the immigrant district of Lyon. For the mayor of Rillieux-la-Pape, “these unjustifiable acts are the work of a mafia gang which sees its ground receding every day”.
The new episode of urban violence was denounced by the mayor of Rillieux-la-Pape. According to a spokesperson for public transport in the agglomeration, the bus was parked around 8:30 pm at the terminus of a line when its driver saw around twenty hooded people carrying cans.
He tried to leave the terminus to save the vehicle, but “youths” lined up in front of the bus, while others ordered him to get out, before setting the vehicle on fire.
The driver was not physically assaulted, according to the spokesperson. Another driver of a line passing through the neighbourhood however sounded the alert and saved his colleague who had been taken hostage.
Transport in the immigrant sector came to standstill on Sunday. “It was already complicated for some time, with stones, attacks,” said the spokesperson. Elsewhere in Rillieux-la-Pape, seven cars were set on fire, according to the town hall, and the emergency services “again and again” came under mortar fire during their intervention, according to their union.
The mast of a CCTV camera was also damaged by an attempt to saw it off with a grinder, according to the mayor of the city Alexandre Vincendet.
A commando of specialists in urban violence has once again decided to give the inhabitants “30 minutes of an infamous outburst of violence,” the elected official said in a press release. “These unjustifiable acts are the work of a mafia gang which sees its ground receding every day.”
Rillieux-la-Pape, has been a “Republican reconquest district” since January, but has experienced several episodes of urban violence in recent months and its mayor has been the subject of threats against the backdrop of a reinforced fight against drug trafficking, involving the national police as well as municipal law enforcement.
https://freewestmedia.com/2021/03/29/new-episode-of-immigrant-violence-in-lyon/