the essential
On the night of New Year’s Eve, rue Hubertine-Auclert, in Toulouse, flames ravaged three cars and left a charred facade. A., a house painter, is deprived of his vehicle which he took every day to go to work.
The smell of burning still hangs in the air. On the ground, bubbles from the extinguishing foam burst one after the other. The day after New Year’s Eve, the three carcasses of the charred cars seem to be sinking into the asphalt, rue Hubertine-Auclert. These vehicles were the target of an arson attack. Across the street, plastic parts of the fairings of two vehicles melted from the heat of the blaze.
The flames rose very high, to the top floor of the building near which they were parked. The facade of this building turned into a piece of coal. Five residents were poisoned by the smoke. Haute-Garonne firefighters brought the fire under control around four o’clock.
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New Year’s Eve: three cars on fire in Toulouse, 5 people poisoned by smoke from the fire
A few minutes before the firefighters arrived, S., awakened by an urgent urge, was attracted by a disturbing orange glow. When she opened the shutters, she helplessly discovered the family car on fire. Three successive explosions tore through the night. This forty-year-old has turned a blind eye. His breath caught. She collapsed to the ground. “I don’t know what’s the point of hurting others. I don’t know if their actions give them pleasure. They’re sick, these people,” she says indignantly.
“How am I going to get to work?”
Her husband, A., is devastated. He took the car every morning to go to work. “I don’t know how I’m going to get there from now on,” laments this house painter. The family, of Bulgarian origin, went to the police station to file a complaint. She also declared the loss online with her insurance.
A family friend, who came to bring a little comfort after this nightmarish night, lets her anger explode: “We are already stressed every day in this neighborhood because of the noise, the screams. Why go after good people? “
Abdel lives in the adjoining building. His car, a Peugeot 3008, located a few meters from those which caught fire, was spared. This fifty-year-old observed the sad spectacle of flames devouring his neighbors’ vehicles. “At the stroke of four o’clock, my neighbor knocked on my door. She woke me up. I made sure that mine was not touched. I have lived in this city for over 20 years. I I’m used to seeing cars on fire that evening. I don’t know why young people set fires. I know one of the owners of the burned cars, he’s a nice man.
A. and S. already lived in the city in the early 2000s. They had to move to the suburbs, to Frouzins, following the demolition of their building. The couple and their children returned to Empalot at the beginning of December. During New Year’s Eve, the police recorded around twenty vehicles set on fire in Toulouse.
Belgium
