Cars have been set on fire near several prisons in France while one was targeted with automatic gunfire, in possible retaliation against government anti-drug policies, justice ministry officials said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
On Monday, three vehicles, including two belonging to prison staff, were set on fire in the car park of the Villepinte prison north of Paris, police said. A fuel canister was found on site, and CCTV footage showed two individuals torching cars.<\/p>\n
Cars parked outside three other prisons, one near Paris and two in southern France, were also set on fire.<\/p>\n
In a prison in Toulon, on France’s southern coast, 15 bullet impacts were found on the front gate following an attack with a “Kalashnikov-type” assault weapon, union FO Justice<\/a> said.<\/p>\n According to prison staff union FO Justice, “vehicles were torched, prison gates set on fire, and even targeted with heavy guns.”<\/p>\n In a prison in nearby Aix, two vehicles were set on fire and the gate of the local ERIS prison surveillance unit was damaged, the union added.<\/p>\n Overnight Sunday to Monday, fires had already been set in the parking lots of a prison staff training centre and a prison near Paris.<\/p>\n Drug crackdown?<\/p>\n “All this appeared to have been coordinated and is clearly linked to the anti-drug gang strategy” introduced by Justice<\/a> Minister Gerald Darmanin<\/a>, a source told French news agency AFP after the incidents recorded overnight to Tuesday.<\/p>\n (with AFP)<\/p>\n Read more on RFI English<\/a><\/p>\n Read also:
New prison to isolate 100 of France’s most dangerous drug lords<\/a>
Overcrowding in French prisons puts justice system under scrutiny<\/a>
Young offenders drive repeat crime rates in France, study shows<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cars have been set on fire near several prisons in France while one was targeted with automatic gunfire,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[14452,14451,2000,299,36,14450,14453,14449],"class_list":{"0":"post-22767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-anti-drug","9":"tag-automatic-gunfire","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-prison-staff","14":"tag-set-on-fire","15":"tag-southern-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114343587566182457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}