Gatherings, security measures… should we fear excesses after the announcement of the legislative results ?

Un important dispositif de sécurité va être mis en place. MAXPPP – Jan Schmidt-Whitley/Le Pictorium

En fonction des résultats du second tour le dimanche 7 juillet 2024, des débordements sont à craindre. Quelque 30 000 policiers et gendarmes seront déployés.

The climate of tension of the legislative campaign, marked between the two rounds by attacks and violence against candidates or activists, makes the government fear &amp ;quot;excesses" from Sunday evening, whatever the outcome of the ballot boxes.

Campaign under tension

During this accelerated, particularly tense campaign, "51 candidates, substitutes or activists" were< em> "physically attacked", indicated Friday Gérald Darmanin, who specifies "more than ’around thirty& rsquo;arrests" in connection with this violence. Among those arrested were "spontaneously angry people" or "ultra-left or ultra-right political activists".

On Thursday, commenting on the attack on government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot and two members of her team in Meudon, during a poster-pasting, he judged that something was happening that bordered on the liberation of the violence".

But this Friday, no specific signs were detected by the intelligence services suggesting an outbreak of violence, a few weeks before the start of the Olympic Games in the capital (July 26 – August 11). "I don't read into crystal balls, but the mobilized law enforcement agencies are placed in a configuration such that they will be able to deal with any situation", a senior police official commented on Friday.

France on edge

Everyone nevertheless has in mind that anything can happen in this "France à vive", like the’a described Friday Gérald Darmanin. To deal with any eventuality, the government decided to mobilize 30,000 police and gendarmes on Sunday evening, including 5,000 in Paris and the suburbs.

A substantial law enforcement system, the level of which will depend on the situation, will remain in place "until at least July 16& ;quot;, a police source added on Thursday.

The intelligence services expect, according to a police source, a "hardening" from Sunday evening on the part "of extremist movements whatever the result, whether it involves rejoicing in the victory of one camp or to denounce the victory of the other side".

In so-called sensitive neighborhoods, in the event of a victory for the RN, they estimate that attacks by the police are "very probable& quot;, with "the risk that these incidents turn into urban violence in certain sectors".< /p>