On Saturday, January 10, around 7:30 p.m., a 25-year-old policeman received a stab wound in the middle of a brawl involving several young people in Marseille, reported regional daily La Provence. He was seriously injured in the abdomen, and his life is hanging by a thread.
The official was not on duty at the time of the facts, when he wanted to intervene in a fight, in front of a bakery in the Chartreux district, in the heart of Marseille, according to the Direction of Public Security of Bouches-du -Rhône.
A police source said that as a police officer, he had an obligation to intervene if the circumstances so required. He was struck by one of the persons involved, and suffered cardio-respiratory failure as a result.
Firemen transported him to the Timone hospital, where he was placed in an artificial coma in an effort to save his life. According to the Provencal daily, the young man had not specified that he was a police officer when he intervened. He had just left the police academy and had been posted to Marseille for his first job. The investigation was handed over to the federal police.
The day before, in Bron, in the suburbs of Lyon, another policeman was attacked, struck by a fleeing vehicle. The occupants of a van were caught in the act of stealing cargo from a highway rest area. They were part of a gang which the police had been tracking.
At a roadblock, the vehicle knocked down a policeman, who had weapon in his hand. The 45-year-old civil servant’s life is also hanging by a thread.