Radical left wing involvement is being considered by counter-terrorism police after prisons, and prison officers at home were targeted nationwide.
Dozens of cars belonging to justice officers were burnt in prison staff car parks and at home addresses, and one prison was sprayed with gunfire in a series of attacks the French state calls deliberate and coordinated. National counter terrorism police have been assigned the investigation and the nation’s Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin has decried these as attempts to intimidate the legal system.
FranceInfo have called the attacked “unprecedented” on French soil and whether they were the work of the ultra-left, drugs gangs, or otherwise is being considered by investigators.
The first attacks took place on Sunday night when several vehicles were torced at the car park of the French national school of prison administration in Agen, Nouvelle-Aquitaine in Southwest France. But events intensified the following night, Monday into Tuesday morning, when prisons and prison employees nationwide were attacked.
In Paris, the Nanterre prison saw two individuals setting fire to a vehicle belonging to a member of prison staff. Shortly afterwards, three further cars were burnt in the staff car park of Villepinte, another Paris prison.
In the south of France at Aix-Luynes prison two cars were burned and the gate leading into the compound of France’s elite anti-prison-riot squad ‘ERIS‘ was set alight. In Valence, near Lyons, two cars belonging to prison guards were burnt by an individual riding a moped.
A similar story played out in Marseille, but rather than prison guards being targeted at work the attackers took their war to the employees’ homes, where several cars were burned in the city outside the residences of guards. In Nimes, several cars were set alight but the fire did not spread in this case.
But the most serious attacks took place in Toulon on Saturday night, where rifle rounds were shot at the city prison. Described as “Kalashnikov” type rounds in the French media, fifteen bullet holes were found in the armoured gate, one of which penetrated.
A spokesman for the public prosecutor said the attack on Toulon was being investigated as attempted murder of a public servant, and that: “There were heavy weapons shots fired at the gate of the Toulon-La Farlède penitentiary center around 12:40 a.m. by several individuals who arrived in vehicles… A little over ten shell casings were found”, reports Le Figaro.
In several of the cases the attacks were accompanied by the graffiti ‘DDPF’, which has been said to possibly stand for an obscure left-wing slogan ‘droit des prisonniers Français’, or rights for French prisoners.
FO Justice, a union of French prison workers called the attacks a “criminal” assault on their members and against the French Republic itself. They demanded a “strong, immediate, and unambiguous response from the State.”
Justice minister Darmanin travelled to Toulon on Tuesday afternoon to speak with impacted prison guards and suggested his crusade against drugs gangs and criminal networks could be the reason behind the attacks. The government will be “firm and courageous” in the face of such “intimidation attempts”, he said.
Meanwhile. several French publications including Le Parisien cite investigation insiders who say a hard left political angle is being considered. That newspaper cited messages published to a hard-left Telegram channel linked to the ‘DDPF’ slogan which they said showed repeated threats to attack prisons and officers.
Among the messages retrieved by the paper included ones that said of prison officers: “you will all die for the harm you have done… know that our movement is spreading throughout France. All the guards who took advantage of their power and contributed to the deterioration of detention conditions will pay the full consequences… All prisoners in France must mobilize and wake up”.
Another message accused the state of killing people in prison and of administering beatings “in isolated rooms, out of camera range”. Another chilling message stated that prison guards acted tough at work, but daily returned home in their cars and hence became unprotected.
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