What we know about the death of Nicolas, 22, shot dead in front of a nightclub in Ardèche

A shooting broke out during the night from Thursday to Friday in Saint-Péray, in Ardèche. Seriously injured, Nicolas was hospitalized. His death was announced on Saturday November 2.

A 22-year-old young man, called Nicolas, died after being injured during a shooting that occurred on the night of Thursday October 31 to Friday November 1, in front of a nightclub near Valence, in the Drôme.

• Gunshots outside a nightclub

During the night from Thursday to Friday, around 2:30 a.m., shots were fired in the queue at the Le Seven nightclub in Saint-Péray, in the suburbs of Valence, BFMTV learned from reliable sources.

Some participants initially believed that it was a staging linked to the Halloween party which was being held that evening in the establishment, before understanding that it was shooting. live ammunition.

Partygoers crawled into the nightclub as the gunman fled.

• One dead and two injured

Among the young people present, Nicolas, 22, was seriously shot in the head. Transported to Valence hospital, he was declared dead on Saturday “early afternoon”, announced deputy prosecutor Charlotte Cerna to Agence France-presse.

Two other people were injured in the shooting, but more lightly. It concerns a young woman shot in the leg and one of the bouncers at the nightclub.

According to our information, their lives are not considered to be in danger this Sunday.

• A drama echoing that of Crépol

This tragedy occurs a year after the death of Thomas, a 16-year-old high school student, stabbed during a village festival in Crépol, in Drôme, located a few dozen kilometers from the town of Saint-Péray.

Nicolas and Thomas had one thing in common: both were members of the Rugby Club Romans-Péage (RCRP). Their club also paid tribute to them.

“The club has been touched again in the heart since Thursday evening. Nicolas, Kolbe, Nico, the princess and so many other nicknames have just left us in atrocious circumstances. We are once again devastated and send our most sincere condolences to his family and loved ones,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

• “A new tragedy” for Retailleau

Marie-Hélène Thoraval, the Les Républicains mayor of Romans-sur-Isère, where Nicolas lived, reacted this Sunday on BFMTV to this disappearance. “I have the impression of reliving the same words, of hearing the same sentences, and this same resonance of families and also of a population, of a club which lost one of its own for free,” she says, referring to Thomas' death a year earlier.

“He was certainly there in the wrong place and at the wrong time,” said the elected official.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau also reacted. “The death of Nicolas in Ardèche is a new tragedy,” he wrote on his X account. “The fight we must wage requires legislative rearmament and determination from everyone and at every moment,” adds he.

• An open investigation

An investigation was opened in connection with this tragedy by the Privas public prosecutor's office in Ardèche. The investigations were entrusted to the Organized and Specialized Crime Division (DCOS).

According to the first elements of the investigation, the author of the first shots was a man dressed in black and wearing a balaclava. This Sunday morning, no arrests had yet been made.

This shooting could be linked to drug trafficking, BFMTV learned from reliable sources.