“It’s a shame: we live in Paris, and yet we had never seen a scene like this.” This Saturday, December 28, 2024, the day after the attack on a bus near the Bellevue district in Brest, Margaux, 29, still seems incredulous at the mention of the explosion of violence that she observed the day before , during an evening that was to be written in the carefree holiday mood.
“With my boyfriend, we took the bus around 8:15 p.m. in Guilers, where my family lives, to go have a drink with friends in the city center of Brest,” rewinds the young woman. In Penfeld, where the Lunapark funfair takes place, “a group of fifteen to twenty young people got on the bus. We quickly saw that they were agitated, some were going back and forth between the front and the back of the bus, where the group was seated. But we had no idea what would come next.”
“They had iron bars and knives”
The line 12 bus is then full, particularly with families and young children. Four stops after Penfeld, along Avenue Le-Gorgeu, the vehicle stops to allow several passengers to get off. “There, we saw a group of six to ten young people arrive. They were hooded, and they held iron bars recovered from construction sites or knives,” describes Margaux.
What she doesn't know is that these attackers are after the gang who got on the bus in Penfeld: a brawl between the two groups of minors had occurred a few minutes earlier at the funfair. A young man was then stabbed and his friends intend to avenge him. Even if it means doing it in the middle of a bus, under the eyes of numerous witnesses.
“A big panic”
“As soon as they got in, the group started breaking the windows on the bus stop side, moving towards the back. We mainly tried to protect ourselves from broken glass. People were screaming, there was a lot of panic. The group that had sat at the back began to shout. We managed to get out, like almost all the passengers. And the bus left, with just the first group inside.”
The attackers flee immediately. Margaux and her friend Kilian try to regain their senses, but quickly see a young man fallen to the ground, at a pedestrian crossing. “His skull was open, with a lot of blood*”. Aged around fifteen, he was hit by a construction prop and lost consciousness.
“We stayed with him until help arrived,” says Margaux. “Two young girls, who were part of the same gang, were also by his side. They told us what happened in Penfeld. And that this aggression was revenge of the Bellevue gang on that of Pontanézen.”
Four arrests
After being interviewed by the police, the couple walked up Avenue Le Gorgeu to the Schumann Bridge, a few hundred meters further. The bus, with its windows shattered, stopped there, with three other injured people on board, briefly treated in hospital. Two hours later, the management of RTPA-Dev, manager of the Bibus network, will decide to completely interrupt the bus service on the entire Brest network for the end of the evening. According to our information, four minors were arrested in the hours following the attack.
“Everything happened extremely quickly, and yet we have images that stay in our heads. Even if we were not targeted, we are not prepared to experience something like that by simply going for a drink,” concludes Margaux. This Saturday, from 6 p.m. and nightfall, the Bergot sector, where the attack took place, would be bypassed by the bus network. The CFDT, the majority union in Bibus, says it fears further reprisals in the days to come.
The young man was still hospitalized this Saturday.
France
