French police have detained 12 suspects after 145 people reported being pricked with syringes during the country’s annual street music festival, officials said Sunday.
Millions of people took to the streets across France on Saturday evening for the Fete de la Musique, with authorities reporting “unprecedented crowds” in Paris.
Before the party, posts on social media had called for women to be targeted during the festivities.
Aside from the pricking scandal, what a fantastic idea.
On “Fête de la Musique” people are urged to play music outside.
Here my country is stuck with Christian holidays that noone remembers the meaning of.
We also have those Christian holidays in France, and fête de la musique is just one evening, not a holiday. But it is on the longest daylight day of the year, so that’s nice.
It’s a GREAT festival. Super fun. Every neighborhood you can just walk around and there are little stages of groups or solo musicians performing. Free and just kind of everywhere. Good vibes. Very pedestrian friendly.
This is a panic that has come and gone multiple times even just during my lifetime. I remember the first time I heard about it was visitors to neighboring Tijuana with HIV infected blood on the 80s. Never once has it actually been confirmed to have happened.
These are 145 self reports. Nothing confirmed. No video evidence.
This is a real phenomenon, first widely reported in 2022. Due to some reason, it has resurged.
Arrests in France after scores report being attacked with syringes at street music festival
Millions of people took to the streets across France on Saturday evening for the Fête de la Musique, with authorities reporting “unprecedented crowds” in Paris. The feminist influencer Abrège Soeur warned online before the festival that calls had been made on social media for women to be targeted with syringes. It was not certain where such posts would have been made or by whom.
The interior ministry said 145 victims across the country had reported being stabbed with needles during outdoor music events across the country. Paris police reported 13 cases in the capital. Officials did not say if these were cases of so-called needle spiking with date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol or GHB, used by attackers to render victims confused or unconscious and vulnerable to sexual assault. “Some victims were taken to hospital for toxicological tests,” the ministry said.
In Paris, investigations were opened after three people, including a 15-year-old girl and an 18-year-old male, reported being stabbed in separate incidents across Paris, prosecutors said. All three reported feeling unwell. Across France, 12 suspects have been arrested, the interior ministry said. Among them were four people in the south-western city of Angoulême suspected of having targeted about 50 victims, a police source said.
/…/ There was a wave of reports in 2022 about alleged syringe attacks against women and men in clubs, bars, music events and even theatres. The government put out messages at the time for people going out at night to be vigilant and advising them that they should go immediately to the police and also have a toxicology test if they thought they had been drugged by a syringe prick.
Since another person linked to a story about this on Twitter, of all things, I did some background checking. Does not look like a “panic”, but a new genre of crime.
The mayor of the city of Metz, identifiable, writes on social media (Instagram) confirming the occurrence. Confirming that arrests have been made. Other sources (among them old media outlets like the Guardian, see above link) report about it.
Incitement allegedly occurred over social media. It will be investigated where it occurred. Victims have been sent to toxicology. It will be investigated what was injected, if anything. Some victims reported feeling unwell.
Guess: in a crowd, it is relatively easy to anonymously attack someone and hope to leave little evidence. However, this time, it has been claimed that some assailants were detained on the spot. There will be information confirming or denying this pretty soon.
Of course the 145 police reports don’t count. This is 145 women were talking about.
During the 80s example I gave it was men that were reporting it.
Anyone can file a police report. And if they believe they were a victim then they are more likely to do that.
Last time I heard about this it was all over Facebook and shit.
Then the government, police and drs came out and said their was no evidence and when you think about it it doesn’t make any sense.
Honestly how many women have you seen smash way way too many drinks and claim they got spiked. No you weigh fuck all, you were smashing drinks, thats why you can’t stand. We’ve all drank too much.
Tangentially, I was chatting with the owner of my local pub in Boston recently, and apparently it’s become something of a game (?!?!?!?!?) to try to slip people mickeys around here. As in, just see if you can sneak it into the drink, with no real intent of abuse or rape or whatever - just to see if you can do it.
I fucking hate humans sometimes.
I mean i could see this actually being a good stunt to raise awareness about it. Like use something fake and safe like a time release tablet that makes the drink fizz up suddenly 30 seconds later, or causes the whole thing to turn colour rapidly or something. But i doubt thats whats happening. Might make for a funny party theme with a close group of friends who are all in on it and targeting each other though.
Nah, plenty of SA happening in Boston bars, and has been for like 10 years now in this recent “wave” where incidents have been increasing.
Motherfuckers just never knew how to have a good time.
Is that what they say once they get caught, or do they tell that story just in case they get caught in the future?
No idea. If I caught someone doing it, I wouldn’t talk to them about what their rationale was. I’d throw my beer at them and then yell for the bouncer that some guy was trying to slip shit into drinks.
There are many more dumb assholes than rapists. I believe people who do this just for fun, not for rape, do exist. It’s quite terrible anyway.
Tangentially, I was chatting with the owner of my local pub in Boston recently, and apparently it’s become something of a game (?!?!?!?!?) to try to slip people mickeys around here.
In some time periods in some places in the world, getting a hand cut off was punishment for theft. While that is a bit extreme, maybe assholes convicted of this should lose the final knuckle of their pinky finger as punishment for drugging people at bars.
It should be something easy to see. Part of the advantage of cutting off someone’s hand isn’t just the punishment, it’s a marker that a person is a thief that they can’t get rid of. Ideally it’d be something obvious and easy to see, that’s also uncommon enough naturally that you know what happened.
Fuck, this was happening when my younger sister was going to bars. It wasn’t a thing I was aware of when I was younger. But I remember my sister saying 15 years ago that people were slipping drugs into drinks for this same reason. It was just to fuck with people
called for women to be targeted during the festivities
Do we know more? Was this supposed to just scare them or did they actually get injected with something?
Officials did not say if these were cases of so-called needle spiking with date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol or GHB
Some victims were taken to hospital for toxicological tests
investigations were opened after three people… reported feeling unwell.
after three people… reported feeling unwell.
Well that’s fair enough at any rate. So maybe at least this didn’t get anyone seriously injured.
Article said cops were injured but didn’t give details.
10-15 years ago it was definitely a thing. I remember posts about it on reddit, back when reddit was good. Eventually after it blew up a lot of bars started doing the angel drinks or messages in the bathroom. Bunch of women were targeted
Yep. In the 2000s, my town had a serious scare. I lived in a small town at the time near a major music fest, and the town handed out flyers about watching yourself because we had a bunch of roofie incidents.
One festival mocked our town for it and called us assholes/cops. Because that festival were like pro date-rape or some shit? Festival doesn’t exist anymore.
But I’ll never forget how many naive tourist girls who would get the flyer, laugh, and go, “Why would anyone do this haha!” And don’t take this stuff seriously.
I feel like social media has been a huge help at identifying shit behavior.
The people planning this and walking around doing the pricking…
There’s a classic death metal song by Cannibal Corpse called “Hammer Smashed Face”.
And that 145 is just those who noticed. I regularly have to self administer injections and they’re often nearly painless once you’re used to doing it, especially with small gauge needles.
Jesus Fucking Christ, Paris
This could literally have happened anywhere
It was happening on the NYC subway some years back, people were poking people with syringes contaminated with HIV
I’m gonna assume it was boys doing the pricking?
Removed by mod
I’m sorry, how does this apply to trans people at all?
When your takeaway from every bad thing that happens is “can i blame exclusively men?” You are already treading very close to that bigoted rhetoric.
