In Marseille, a firefighter recounts how his truck was attacked

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A stoned, looted and completely burned fire truck. Thursday, October 1 in the morning, on the sidelines of a high school demonstration in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), the second master Jean, a Marseille firefighter, leads a crew who came to put out a simple waste fire. A month after this scene of rare violence, he agreed to testify: "There was a large movement of crowd moving towards us, starting to strip the truck. As best we could, we tried to hurry on our truck to try to get these young individuals to leave. And that's when we were attacked by the throwing of objects, stones, etc. The objective at the beginning was to reason with them, so to try to calm the situation. Unfortunately, I think that the fact that there was a crowd movement, the situation got totally out of control."

Amidst the chaos, the crew is forced to abandon their vehicle to reach safety. Jean reviewed the images numerous times. His anger is intact: "I feel incomprehension because we know that we put our lives in danger for fires, but not for this risk, not to be attacked by individuals. One less truck that has been burned, that is less help for the population."

At 29, after seven years of service with the marine firefighters, Jean recognizes that this attack changed his behavior. He confides: "There was fear that was felt, fear of the crew. So yes, it's changing, it's changing completely. So we're paying more and more attention to our external environment."

A new attack against a firefighter in Bouches-du-Rhône

Sunday, November 1, it was a firefighter from Bouches-du-Rhône, called to a vehicle fire, who was attacked with a shotgun in Pennes-Mirabeau. A new act of violence that the sailor-firefighter condemns. “We support our comrade who suffered these events. You must respect the uniform, respect the people who are there for you, and above all, we are here to protect you,” says Jean.

In France, according to the Ministry of the Interior, an average of four attacks are committed against firefighters every day.