Needles such as these were used in the French attack b ymuslim immigrants/Envato market

By Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief

PARIS (Worthy News) – French police have detained 12 people after 145 individuals, most of them women and girls, reported being pricked with syringes during a nationwide street music festival over the weekend, officials said.

Apart from those suspects, more than 370 people were reportedly detained during the event on various charges, including nearly 90 people in Paris, where riots broke out.

Fourteen participants in the festivities were seriously injured, including a 17-year-old who was hospitalised after being found sitting on the street with stab wounds to the lower abdomen, according to authorities.

Thirteen members of law enforcement were also injured, police announced.

Additionally, over 1,500 people reportedly suffered “minor injuries” while 51 vehicles were said to have been torched.

Worthy News witnessed fires and destruction in Paris with crowds of men, including apparently migrants, smashing garbage cans in a shopping area, as well as fighting. Some women were among those being attacked, witnesses said.

Roughly half of the 12 primary suspects in police custody were described as “non-French nationals.”

FUELING TENSIONS

Those findings were due to fill tensions amid an ongoing debate here and across Europe about the massive arrival of migrants fleeing war, persecution, and poverty from mainly Muslim nations.

Ahead of the festival, online influencers like Abrège Soeur warned that calls had been made on social media for women to be targeted with syringes.

Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez told French broadcaster CNews: “These are extremely serious incidents,” calling the online calls to inject women “completely idiotic.”

Among those in police custody were two men detained in the center of the north-eastern city of Metz on suspicion of syringe attacks, officials confirmed.

Metz Mayor François Grosdidier said that “on social [media] networks, a call for syringe assaults was launched during the Music Festivals in major cities.”

He added on social media that “It happened in two other cities in Moselle and all over France… 17 young girls (ages 14-20) were victimized in Metz.”

Grosdidier said a “description of a syringe attacker was shared with the Urban Supervision Center (CSU) [which deals with surveillance and security] to help locate him on video, as well as with the municipal and national police.”

MUNICIPAL TRAINING

Municipal police officers, he noticed, “identified him on [the] Rue Serpenoise [shopping street in downtown Metz], arrested him, and handed the man over to the National Police and judicial authorities. I hope the investigation, especially examining his mobile phone, will help identify other attackers.”

The violence overshadowed the Fête de la Musique, or Music Festival, an annual event in France for more than four decades.

On June 21, the summer solstice, musicians of all abilities are encouraged to perform on sidewalks, in parks, and in other public spaces, and free concerts are staged across the country and in France’s overseas territories.

Yet there was little to celebrate for the victims of syringe attacks who reported feeling an array of symptoms such as hot flushes, dizziness, loss of consciousness, and visible marks or bruises on their skin.

Officials have yet to say if these were cases of needle spiking with “date-rape” drugs such as Rohypnol or GHB, which render victims confused and vulnerable to sexual assault.

Some victims were treated by medics at the festival. Still, some were taken to the hospital where they gave saliva, urine, and blood samples to detect whether they had been injected with substances, according to police.

A young female reveler from Bordeaux filmed herself getting treatment in the hospital, saying she wasn’t the only one seeking help after being attacked.

MOTHER SPIKED?

Crying, she recalled, “just before me, there was another girl who also got jabbed.”

She asked, “Help me understand what is going on in these people’s heads? Would they like they aunt, their sister their mother to get spiked?”

Similar cases took place in France in June 2022 when suspects across the nation were detained for allegedly pricking people with a needle in nightclubs or at concerts.

At the time, the French Ministry of the Interior confirmed that 80% of the targets were young women.

French police tallied over 400 reports at the time, saying that the motive of the jabs was unclear.

France isn’t alone. In Spain, the number of women reporting being jabbed with medical needles while at nightclubs or parties rose to 60 in 2022, according to the country’s interior minister.

There were similar incidents in Britain between September 2021 and the end of December 2022.

1,000 CASES

That prompted British Parliament to publish a report in April 2022 about more than 1,000 recorded needle attacks since September 2021.

The report surveyed more than 3,000 victims and witnesses.

Citing police data, it said that about 90 percent of needle spiking attacks occurred at night in venues like pubs and nightclubs, as well as at festivals and house parties.

Motives for the attacks include frustration about life and disrespect for women among many of the attackers, according to critical observers.

Syringe attacks also make victims vulnerable to theft or sexual assault, experts explain.

With Europe already on edge for possible acts of terrorism and the war in Ukraine, syringe attacks could not have come at a worse moment.

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