On Thursday, March 22nd, about 150 people gathered in front of the IMAG building at the University of Grenoble. Inside the building a conference was being held by the various players involved in the militarization of the borders: Frontex (European Border and Coast Guard Agency), Euromed Police (Euro-Mediterranean Police Cooperation), Europol, etc. The conference slogan was ‘From Frontex to Frontex, Towards the Establishment of a New European Coast Guard Corps’. The President of the Euromed Police and the Director of Legal Affairs for Frontex were both present. Slogans, a media table and leafleting were on the agenda for the afternoon.
The organizers of the conference chose to keep it under police surveillance, all who entered were being screened by members of the BAC (Anti-Crime Brigade).
At around 4PM, a group of over 30 people went to the conference room to disrupt the presentation by the president of Euromed Police, and to appeal to the conference attendees. Participants then opened the doors for the protesters who entered and chanted slogans for about 10 minutes, leaving enough time to spraypaint a tag in the room saying ‘FRONTEX KILLS’.
Police kitted out in riot gear intervened, assaulting the protesters without even warning them to leave the building. Blocked against a wall, dozens of people were trapped without being able to avoid the police assault. Many people were injured and some of them had to be hospitalized. It seems that there were no arrests.
(Report compiled from local press coverage and coverage from Indymedia Grenoble)
(via Sans Attendre Demain, translated by Insurrection News)
