Emmanuel Macron has warned that those behind a wave of apparently coordinated attacks on French prisons and staff will be “found, tried and punished”, reports The Guardian.
The president’s comments came after at least a dozen assaults on French jails in the past three days. In one attack, gunmen using automatic weapons fired at the entrance to Toulon prison in the south of France.
In other incidents, cars have been set alight and there have been vandalism and arson attempts on prison wardens’ accommodation.
In several of the attacks, the acronym DDPF – Defence of French Prisoners – has been discovered. Le Parisien reported that a prisoner on conditional release had been arrested in the Essonne, south of Paris, on Wednesday morning in connection with the group.
The man was alleged to have been part of an encrypted Telegram message group linked to the assaults. A post in the name of the DDPF made on Tuesday read: “We are not terrorists, we are here to defend human rights inside prisons.”
Telegram has said it has now deleted all the messages and said calling for violence and threats was “explicitly banned”.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.