Racist insults, tear gas and punches. A resident of Anglet denounces a racist attack, suffered on the night of December 26, in Bayonne. The alleged victim, a 29-year-old woman, nurse, of West Indian origin, filed a complaint for “assault with weapon” et “vol simple”at the Bayonne police station.
At the time of the alleged attack, the young woman was in a car, accompanied by her little sister. The two women were returning home, around two in the morning, after a New Year's Eve party, when she came across the vehicle of their alleged attacker. According to the victim, he pursued for several kilometers, from Biarritz to Bayonne. The alleged attacker was then driving in a gray Mercedes, accompanied by two other men. The attack allegedly took place in Bayonne, at a red light, at the Saint-Léon roundabout, when two of the three occupants got out of their vehicle to attack the young women.
“Get away, you black girl”
At the origin of the altercation: a cigarette butt, which the victim had thrown out of the window of his car, a few kilometers earlier. “He asks me if I’m not ashamed of polluting”says the 29-year-old nurse. “I tell him that he drives a Mercedes and therefore it’s daring to give me ecology lessons. I think he couldn’t stand two women, who are black, answering him,” estimates the young woman. According to her, the throwing of his cigarette butt was only a pretext. She explains that very quickly, he comes to blows. “He had decided to fight, he got out of the car with a tear gas canister. So he gassed me, and said to me “Get out of there, you dirty black”. I saw the hatred in his eyes,” she remembers, still in shock. “We can’t be attacked like that, gassed, beaten, for a simple cigarette butt”she adds on the verge of tears.
“I have a lot of gas in my eyes, in my nose. It's awful. I just have the reflex to remove what's in my eyes and see that my little sister is on the ground. So I rushes at her to try to defend her, but in my rush, he turns around and puts a big potato in my face. I fall behind and I'm knocked out for two or three minutes. that they went too far, they took their car and left us like that, my sister and me, in the middle of the road, gassed. We could have been hit by a car, we could no longer see anything, we could have died in complete indifference. total”says the young woman. According to the alleged victim, the three men left with the keys to his car. It was a passerby who alerted the police.
“If we were white, they would have called the fire department”
The alleged victim deplores the provision of emergency services after the attack. According to her, the police brigade which intervened did not take the situation seriously enough. “We told them that we had been attacked, my face was all swollen, all bruised and they didn't even call the firefighters. However, I told them that I had had a knockout, that my head had hit and I was completely stunned. They told us to go to the emergency room on our own, even though we had gas in our eyes. We felt attacked twice, because this man hit us. and he gassed us But also by the police. because they didn't do anything. Honestly, I think that if my sister and I had been white, if our names had been Amandine or Clémentine, they would have called the firefighters. I could have suffered a head injury for three days. Afterwards, we don't know anything about it.”she believes.
The anti-fascist group Ipar Euskal Herria organizes a gathering, this Tuesday, December 31at noon, at the Halles de Bayonne. “Let us not leave these acts unanswered”writes the collective on its social networks.
