According to our colleagues at *Le Progrès*, over the last few days, teenagers from the Montcel neighbourhood in La Ricamarie have been trying to build a makeshift swimming pool. The local council agreed to fill it once, but for fear that someone might drown, the pool was emptied on Thursday evening.
On Friday, some young people tried another stunt: at around 3 pm, they called the fire brigade, claiming there was a car fire. When the fire brigade arrived on the scene, they quickly realised what was going on.
A recurring phenomenon
Far from being put off, the young people asked them to fill the swimming pool. When they refused, some of the youths tried to pelt the fire engine with stones but failed to hit it: “Not only did this mobilise a fire engine and six firefighters for nothing,” said a firefighter, “but they could also have been hit by stones.”
During the welcome ceremony for the volunteer firefighters on Saturday in Saint-Étienne, Georges Ziegler, the president of the Departmental Council, referred to this incident whilst launching a scathing attack on “the taunts, thefts from vehicles and stone-throwing” to which firefighters are regularly subjected.