The recent days of turmoil and rioting in France have now extended to Switzerland, following earlier spillover into Belgium. The city of Lausanne in Switzerland became a scene of clashes between police and groups of predominantly young protesters, reminiscent of the profile of the rioters in France.
During the disturbance, seven individuals, mostly teenagers, were apprehended after numerous shop windows were shattered in Lausanne.
Around 100 people congregated in the city center on Saturday night, situated in the predominantly French-speaking western region of Switzerland.
A statement from the police revealed that young individuals hurled paving stones and at least one Molotov cocktail at officers.
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“Echoing the events and riots raging in France, more than a hundred youths gathered in central Lausanne and damaged businesses,” the Lausanne police reported.
The violence initially sparked in response to multiple calls on social media, leading to the destruction of several shop windows, according to law enforcement.
“On multiple occasions, police officers had to disperse aggressive, hooded youths throwing cobblestones and a Molotov cocktail at them,” the police spokesperson added. “Quite clearly, what emerges from what we have seen is that these young people during the night were inspired by the situation in France.”
Reportedly, French police unions are threatening to launch a coup d’etat if the government does not give them the power to put down the riots.
Pierre-Antoine Hildbrand, the Lausanne council member responsible for security, condemned the organized attempts to loot shops, stating, “We did not have the start of a demonstration… We are facing people who organise themselves to break windows and seize goods.”
Swiss authorities detained six individuals, aged between 15 and 17, comprising three girls and three boys with various nationalities such as Portuguese, Somali, Bosnian, Swiss, Georgian, and Serbian. Additionally, a 24-year-old Swiss man was also apprehended. Fortunately, no police officers sustained injuries.
Meanwhile, in the Belgian capital, Brussels, on Thursday, approximately a dozen people were detained, and several fires were successfully extinguished.
France has witnessed five consecutive nights of rioting in various towns and cities nationwide, with severe clashes between the police and rioters erupting in Marseille overnight.
The unrest originally ignited following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy of Algerian descent by the police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Friday.
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