At least 4,000 people illegally participated in a rave party on Saturday evening, November 2, near Rennes. Altercations took place between partygoers and members of the Traveler community.
Fourteen participants in an illegal rave party south of Rennes were slightly injured after an intervention by travelers who wanted to stop the music and provoked violence, Agence France-presse (AFP) learned this Sunday, November 3 from firefighters.
Around 4,000 people took part in a rave party in an abandoned 9,000 m2 warehouse in Brie, in Ille-et-Vilaine, not far from the Rennes-Angers dual carriageway.
The participants “were installed next to a Traveler camp”, Julien Valdenaire, captain and commander of the rescue operations, explained to AFP.
“Stone throwing” and “baseball bats”
From 8 p.m. on Saturday evening, “there were the first altercations and it degenerated, with many injured,” he said.
“The gendarmes intervened to prevent this from causing numerous victims,” added the captain.
He cited “throws of projectiles” and “stones”, as well as “baseball bats”, specifying that the injuries caused were wounds and a fracture. Seven people were taken to hospital.
Nearly a hundred gendarmes mobilized
Around 6 a.m. this Sunday, calm had returned, according to the gendarmes and an AFP journalist present on site.
The organizers had stopped the music during the night, putting an end to the rave. Up to 120 firefighters and nearly a hundred police officers were mobilized.
The Ille-et-Vilaine prefecture issued an order on October 29 prohibiting “festive gatherings of a musical nature in Ille-et-Vilaine from Thursday October 31 to Monday November 4, 2024”.
