Assailants targeted vehicles and a building lobby linked to prison staff in France overnight, authorities said yesterday, the latest in a series of such attacks.
Since Sunday, unknown assailants have hit several jails and facilities across France, torching vehicles, spraying the entrance of one prison with automatic fire and leaving inscriptions.
The national anti-terrorist prosecutors’ office is leading a probe into the attacks and French Minister of Justice Gerald Darmanin accused people linked to drug trafficking of being responsible.
Photo: AFP
“Clearly people are trying to destabilize the state by intimidating it,” he told the CNews/Europe 1 broadcaster yesterday morning. “They are doing it because we are taking measures against the permissiveness that has existed until now in jails.”
Darmanin and French Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau have in the past few months vowed to intensify the fight against narcotics and drug-related crime.
Darmanin is leading what he calls a “prison revolution” that aims to lock up 200 of France’s 700 most dangerous drug traffickers in two top-security prisons from this summer.
A law against drug-related crime, which includes these prisons, is set to go to a vote in parliament at the end of this month.
Early yesterday, assailants set fire to three vehicles — including one belonging to a prison guard — in the parking lot of a jail in the southern town of Tarascon, its prosecutor said.
The vehicle of another guard working at a jail outside Aix-en-Provence, also in the south, was torched outside his home, a representative from a prison worker union said.
In the Seine-et-Marne region near Paris, someone scrawled the letters “DDPF” — standing for “Rights of French Prisoners” — and tried to start a fire in the entrance of a building where a female prison guard lives, a police source said.
Before that, up until late on Tuesday, 21 vehicles had been graffitied and or set on fire, a police source said.
Most of the incidents were recorded overnight on Monday and Tuesday.
A group calling itself “DDPF” on Telegram yesterday published a video showing a prison guard leaving a vehicle, then shaky footage of a letter box, zooming in on the name on it.
The video ended with the letters “DDPF” against the backdrop of a vehicle burning in front of a building at night.
The account was created on Saturday.
In a post on Sunday, the group described itself as “a movement dedicated to denouncing violations of fundamental rights that Minister Gerald Darmanin intends to breach.”
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
OBJECTS AT SEA: Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar could aid in the detection of small Chinese boats attempting to illegally enter Taiwan, the space agency head said Taiwan aims to send the nation’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite into space in 2027, while the first Formosat-8 and Formosat-9 spacecraft are to be launched in October and 2028 respectively, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council laid out its space development plan in a report reviewed by members of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee. Six LEO satellites would be produced in the initial phase, with the first one, the B5G-1A, scheduled to be launched in 2027, the council said in the report. Regarding the second satellite, the B5G-1B, the government plans to work with private contractors
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he
‘NARWHAL’: The indigenous submarine completed its harbor acceptance test recently and is now under heavy guard as it undergoes tests in open waters, a source said The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, yesterday began sea trials, sailing out of the Port of Kaohsiung, a military source said. Also known as the “Narwhal,” the vessel departed from CSBC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣國際造船) shipyard at about 8am, where it had been docked. More than 10 technicians and military personnel were on deck, with several others standing atop the sail. After recently completing its harbor acceptance test, the vessel has started a series of sea-based trials, including tests of its propulsion and navigational systems, while partially surfaced, the source said. The Hai Kun underwent tests in the port from
RSS