940 cars torched on New Year’s Eve

THE INTERIOR Ministry has welcomed news that the number of cars set alight across France on New Year’s Eve was 12% down on last year.

As revellers in France welcomed in 2015, the anti-social “tradition” saw firefighters called out to deal with 940 car torchings, compared to 1,067 at the start of 2014 - and 1,193 the year before.

The number of arrests also dropped. Police reported 308 people were arrested overnight, against 322 last year.

The ministry said the deployment of some 55,000 police officers and 38,000 firefighters helped celebrations across the country pass off relatively peacefully, though one young man died in a brawl in the Trocadero district of Paris. Police investigating the death have already made an arrest, the ministry added.

Authorities were on high alert after three separate attacks in different cities in France in the run-up to Christmas. There were 2,000 additional police and another 2,000 additional firefighters on duty compared to the previous year. In Paris alone, 1,700 police and gendarmes were on patrol.

Meanwhile, no serious injuries were reported in Alsace, where firecrackers have caused three deaths and several injuries in the past two years. Earlier in the week, police seized two two tonnes of illegal fireworks in a series of raids.

Two men, aged 19 and 24, were arrested in Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, on suspicion of preparing a mortar with the intention of launching an illegal rocket.

Photo: Francois Schnell