French Interior Minister, Gerald DarmaninHe stressed that in the pre-election context, fifty-one physical or verbal attacks had already taken place against French Assembly candidates or supporters of political parties, leading to the arrest of around thirty people. Specifically, the ministry registered fifty-one attacks, some of them “very serious”, even though it was not even a month since the call for the elections. As for the profile of the attackers, Darmanin explained that it was “very diverse”.
“There were attacks from all sides,” Darmanin lamented. Virtually all the major parties have warned of incidents, although the past few days have been marked by attacks on the government spokeswoman’s team in the suburbs of Paris. Prisca ThevenotAnd the assault on a socialist supporter in the Isère region.
Gauthier Sabria: “I think we can start to get a little scared”
On Sunday, the government prepared a security apparatus comprising thirty thousand policemen and gendarmes, five thousand of whom will be deployed in Paris and its suburbs, in anticipation of the possibility of mobilization, especially after the results are published.
The French state has been on the highest level of anti-terrorism alert since March, partly because of the special vigilance it wants to maintain in the run-up to the Paris Olympics. Darmanin admitted that the threat remains “very strong”. The minister confirmed the arrest of suspects in recent days, although he did not provide details on the characteristics and movements of these individuals or the danger they might pose in terms of security. For his part, the candidate for the French prime minister said, Gabriel AttalHe again called for calm and urged other parties to do the same as violence escalated towards the end of the election campaign. Attal, who has criticised far-right claims that he wants to divide “the good and the bad French”, called for “calm and civil peace” ahead of Sunday’s election night.
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