Police station outside Paris targeted in attack with fireworks

Around 40 people armed with fireworks and steel bars besieged a police station outside Paris, authorities said, prompting new calls for tougher government action after a string of attacks on France’s security forces.

Two officers were on a cigarette break outside the station in Champigny- sur- Marne, around 12km east of the capital, when the assailants suddenly converged shortly before midnight.

The officers barely managed to barricade themselves inside when the crowd began attacking the entrance and several police vehicles, while others launched a barrage of powerful fireworks against the building.

No injuries were reported. The city’s mayor, Laurent Jeanne, said the police might have been targeted in retaliation for a recent scooter accident allegedly caused by police, “which has not been proven”.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted that “these little dealers don’t scare anyone, and will not discourage our anti-drug work”, though police officials did not identify the attackers.

Darmanin’s office announced later that he would meet today with police unions, who have been pressing for months for concrete measures to improve working conditions.

Prosecutors said that an arrest reported on Sunday was not related to the attack, adding that surveillance cameras were being reviewed for clues.

Jeanne acknowledged that drug trafficking was a problem in the Bois-L’Abbe neighbourhood, where the station is located.

After a similar incident in northwest France, prosecutors said three people had been arrested in the city of Le Mans after police vehicles were attacked with “mortar-launched fireworks” on the night of Friday to Saturday. No one was hurt in the incident.

Police unions said the attack near Paris underscored a growing threat against law enforcement officers in depressed suburbs of Paris and other large cities.

Tensions have long run high in these densely populated and often poor areas where large immigrant communities have long complained about police brutality and racism.

Two police officers were attacked and shot with their own guns in a Paris suburb last Wednesday, prompting renewed calls for greater efforts to tackle crime and insecurity. —