France riots: Burning car used in ram-raid attack on mayor’s home in ‘assassination attempt’

Published

2 years ago

July 3, 2023

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A burning car has been used to attack the home of a mayor during a fifth night of rioting by protesters sparked by the police killing of a teenager in France.

Vincent Jeanbrun, who runs the Paris suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses, claimed the incident was an “assassination attempt” and authorities said they were treating it as attempted murder.

Mr Jeanbrun, who was not at home at the time, said his property was “ram-raided” and set alight while his wife and two children, aged five and seven, were asleep.

His wife broke her leg and one of the youngsters was injured as they fled the building through the back garden. Mr Jeanbrun told France’s prime minister that his wife had had surgery and faced a three-month rehabilitation.

The mayor, who had been at the town hall, claimed the perpetrators started a fire “to torch my house”.

Prosecutors said the vehicle was stopped apparently by a low wall before reaching the veranda of the house, adding that a flame accelerant was found in a bottle in the car.

The town hall was targeted over several nights since the shooting of a 17-year-old boy and has been protected with barbed wire and barricades. But such a personal attack on a mayor’s home is unusual.

In a statement, Mr Jeanbrun wrote: “A milestone was reached in horror and ignominy. My home was attacked and my family was the victim of an assassination attempt. My determination to protect and serve the Republic is greater than ever. I will not back down.”

French prime minister Elisabeth Borne has “condemned” the attack and gave her full support to the mayor and his family.

A spokesperson for the PM said “the culprits will be prosecuted with the greatest firmness” and the government is “at the side of all the mayors”, adding: “These attacks and violence against elected officials are unacceptable.”

No suspects have been arrested over the incident.

President Emmanuel Macron will have a meeting later with Ms Borne, interior minister Gerald Darmanin and justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti to discuss the protests.

Locals blame government for being too soft on criminals

Few expected violence to shatter the tranquility of L’Hay-les-Roses.

The street itself is now cordoned off by the police. The vehicle used to attack the house, as well as a burnt-out family car, have already been removed. But what lingers is a sense of shock.

We spoke to Gerard and Josie, who have lived in the area for 45 years and said nothing like this had ever happened before.

Josie, articulate and anxious, blamed the government for being too soft on criminals and, like many in France, wondered aloud why so many “10,12 or 13-year-old children” are roaming the streets at night.

“The death of Nahel is not the issue behind attacks like this,” she told us. “It is the excuse.”

Nils came past with his young son in a pram. He’s lived near the mayor’s house for two years, liked the area and said he’d always felt safe here but this morning he was checking the locks and worrying.

He said he was worried and scared. “I have a family at home, just like the mayor,” he said.

Around the town hall, there are now barricades and razor wire, but the shock of this attack runs beyond this small town.

Mob violence is indiscriminate and wanton, which is what makes it so ferociously intimidating, but what happened to the Jeanbrun family was something different – targeted, planned and premeditated.

If that is a sign of things to come, France has another headache to deal with.

Meanwhile, officers in Marseille fired tear gas at protesters as the escalating crisis in France continued.

Sky News footage showed crowds dispersing in the moments after the substance was deployed by officers.

Police in Paris cleared protesters from the Place de la Concorde and increased security at the city’s landmark Champs Elysees avenue after a call on social media to gather there.

Officers later said they arrested 37 people in the French capital after officers confiscated weapons in the area.

Some 2,400 people have been arrested after five nights of violent protests throughout the country following the death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was shot by police during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday.

People have taken to the streets over consecutive nights to protest, setting cars alight, throwing stones and fireworks, and ransacking shops.

A funeral for the teenager was held in Nanterre on Saturday afternoon, with family and friends viewing an open coffin before it was taken to a mosque for a ceremony and later burial.

Nahel’s killing ignited long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects who struggle with poverty, unemployment and racial discrimination.

It has resulted in the worst riots France has seen in years and put pressure on Mr Macron, who has blamed social media for fuelling the violence.

Street clashes continue to rage

Early on Saturday firefighters in Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris, extinguished blazes set by protesters that left the scorched remains of cars strewn across the streets, while in the neighbouring suburb of Colombes protesters overturned bins to use them as makeshift barricades.

On Friday evening looters broke into a gun shop and stole weapons in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, police said.

Despite Mr Macron’s appeal to parents to keep their children at home, street clashes between young protesters and police raged on, with authorities saying around 2,500 fires have been set and stores were ransacked.

As the number of arrests increased the government suggested the violence was beginning to subside due to tougher security measures.

However, the damage has been widespread from Paris to Marseille and Lyon, and even further away in the French overseas territories, where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana.

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

6 hours ago

July 14, 2025

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

World

Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

18 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

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IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

Published

21 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.