French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Friday (5), just hours before the end of the campaign for Sunday’s legislative elections (7), that 51 candidates and political supporters suffered physical attacks during the electoral period in the country.
“There is a climate of great violence,” Darmanin said in an interview with the radio station Europe 1in which he said he feared there would be riots when the election results are announced on Sunday night.
For this reason, it has decided to mobilize 30,000 police officers and agents, of which 5,000 will be in Paris and the metropolitan area, and who will remain so “as long as necessary”.
The minister recalled that the attacks that were confirmed in some cases were “extremely serious”, as they ended with victims being taken to hospitals.
Among them is the one suffered on Wednesday afternoon (3) in the city of Meudon, on the outskirts of Paris, by a group that included the government spokesperson, Prisca Thevenot, candidate for deputy in that electoral district.
His deputy was injured and a militant had his jaw broken by the actions of a group of young people, three of whom were detained.
Another attack was suffered that same day by right-wing candidate Marie Dauchy, in a market in her electoral district of Savoy, and which ended with the arrest of a man.
Behind these attacks, according to Darmanin, there are very diverse profiles, from “spontaneously angry” people to “far-left or far-right political activists”.
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