Gunfire and Clashes Erupt in Nice Neighborhood, Prompting Police Deployment

A pitched battle between residents of the Chechen community and young people mostly from the Maghreb and Cape Verde, degenerated on Sunday evening, in the Liserons sector, in the east of Nice (Alpes-Maritimes). The toll of the clashes: three injured, including two by gunfire, Chechen nationals, aged 27, 32 and 35. It took the muscular intervention of the law enforcement to restore calm in the area.

According to Le Parisien, the violence escalated in this area known for drug and arms trafficking, on Wednesday, June 10 and Thursday, June 11. At the origin, the attack of two Chechen brothers with iron bars, seriously injured and hospitalized, having led to a shooting the next day. After the opening of a judicial investigation for "criminal conspiracy" and "attempted murder", the alleged perpetrators of these acts were to be presented on Monday evening before an investigating judge.

For the Chechen community, which denies any involvement in any trafficking, the facts in question are not to be considered as a "settling of scores". However, sources close to the case would think otherwise, and call for "caution" in view of the patrols recently installed in another sensitive neighborhood of Nice, by some inhabitants of this community, to prevent drug trafficking.

A team of riot police, brought in as reinforcement, after the alert of the mayor Christian Estrosi (LR) to the Minister of the Interior, will watch 24 hours a day over the "control" of the entrances and exits of the sector. Better, to strengthen security, "a new lighting and video surveillance system" will be deployed in the city, announced the mayor.