French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Sunday condemned as "particularly shocking" an attack on the home of a mayor of a Paris suburb, urging tough punishments for the perpetrators. Vincent Jeanbrun's home was ram-raided and set alight while his wife and children were asleep inside during the unrest that has gripped the country following Tuesday's shooting of a teenager by a police officer.
Jeanbrun, mayor of the southern suburb of L'Haÿ-les-Roses, said his wife and one of their two children, aged five and seven, were injured as they fled the building in the early hours.
Jeanbrun, from the conservative Les Républicains party, was not at home but at the town hall during the incident. The town hall has been the target of attack for several nights since the shooting and has been protected with barbed wire and barricades.
"At 01:30am, as I was in the town hall just like the two previous nights, people ram-raided my home before starting a fire to torch my house, where my wife and my two young children were sleeping," Jeanbrun said on his Twitter account.
"While attempting to shield them and fleeing the attackers, my wife and one of my children got hurt."
Visiting the Paris suburb of L’Haÿ-les-Roses on Sunday after the attack on the mayor's home, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne slammed the act as "particularly shocking".
"We will let no violence get by" unpunished, she said, urging that the perpetrators be sanctioned with the "utmost severity".
Créteil public prosecutor Stephane Hardouin confirmed on Sunday morning that he had opened an investigation into attempted murder following the ramming attack on Jeanbrun's home, telling French television that a preliminary investigation suggested that the car was meant to ram the house and set it ablaze.
Hardouin said a flame accelerant had been found in a bottle in the car, and that Jeanbrun's wife was injured as she fled through the backyard of the house. No suspects have been arrested.
FRANCE 24’s Liza Kaminov, reporting from the suburb of L'Haÿ-les-Roses, where the mayor resides, explained that the mayor had been preparing himself for the possibility of violence all week throughout the worsening unrest.
“His town hall has actually got barbed wire all around the building and it’s been under very heavy security since the beginning of the week,” Kaminov said.
She said that residents of the Parisian suburb had been struck by the ferocity of the assault.
“We’ve been speaking to some locals who’ve said that this is the first time that they’re hearing of such an attack on the mayor and a local MP. Vincent Jeanbrun is not just the mayor – he’s actually the spokesperson for Les Républicains party – a very important role."
'Intolerable acts'
French politicians were unanimous in their condemnation of the attack.
"To attack the life of an elected representative and that of his family is to attack the nation," President of the Senate Gérard Larcher wrote on Twitter.
French government spokesman Olivier Véran spoke of his "anger" and his "deep emotion" at the attack.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AP)
