Brawls between gangs of young people in Essonne, a department in the southern suburbs of Paris, left two dead, a teenager on Tuesday and a 14-year-old schoolgirl on Monday, police said.
The young boy was killed “most likely with a stab in the stomach” near a swimming pool. Another teenager was injured in the throat during the fight and was taken by helicopter to a hospital.
The brawl pitted “around forty young people” from two neighboring towns. At least six arrests have taken place, police said.
Monday already, in Essonne, an altercation had broken out between a dozen young people near a college. A teenage girl was then stabbed in the stomach. She died on the night of Monday to Tuesday in the hospital.
For the prosecutor of the Republic of Evry, this phenomenon “gangrene” the department of Essonne “and places minors in the front line”.
The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin announced the dispatch on Tuesday evening of a hundred police and gendarmes in reinforcement in two towns of Essonne where the two teenagers died, so “that things can calm down” .
These two new deaths come a month after the beating of Yuriy, a 15-year-old college student, in Paris. A case which had aroused the excitement of the political class and shone the spotlight on the phenomenon of gangs in the capital.
For five years, however, the number of gangs has appeared stable, both in the Paris area and in the capital, a police source said, specifying that “46 active gangs” have been identified, including “15” in Paris. .
