Front door smashed, food thrown on the ground… A nursing home burned down in the Loire,

Unknown strangers who broke in ransacked the premises of a nursing home in La Grand-Croix, in the Loire, in the middle of the night, and started fires that were quickly put out by firefighters, the police and prosecutors announced to AFP on Wednesday. No one was injured, or even inconvenienced by the smoke, said the management of the establishment which houses around a hundred residents.

Around 2 a.m., “staff members saw two people on the ground floor ransacking technical and logistical premises, including the kitchen” of the Les Tilleuls nursing home, Marina Thévenon, communications director of the mutualist group AÉSIO Santé, which manages it, told AFP. According to RTL, caregivers were also threatened by the suspects.

Before forcing the front door, the “young” attackers threw projectiles at the windows. Then they set fire to the trash cans outside the building then pushed two of them on fire inside, Yves Cellier, the interdepartmental director of the national police (DIPN) of the Loire, told AFP. “It’s recklessness, there could have been deaths if the fire had spread to the upper floors” where the residents are housed, he lamented, referring, in this neighborhood, to “episodes of sporadic urban violence” which his services are confronted with.

The attackers fled.

An investigation into “destruction and damage by fire” was entrusted to the judicial police, Saint-Étienne prosecutor Anne Gaches announced to AFP. Three vehicles were hit by trash fires outside, Yves Cellier also said, adding that the vandals threw furniture and all the food contained in the kitchen fridges on the ground.

“We are working to repair the material damage due to the ransacking and the smoke which did not affect the residents, as well as to take care of our employees marked by this gratuitous violence,” concluded Marina Thévenon. The attackers fled and are actively being sought, as are their accomplices who were waiting for them in a vehicle outside. Video surveillance images are currently being used.

Luc François, the mayor of La Grand-Croix, a town of nearly 5,000 inhabitants located about fifteen kilometers east of Saint-Étienne, condemned the facts, denouncing “a despicable and cowardly act”. The elected official gave his support to the residents and staff of the nursing home. Today the health establishment is operating normally again.