The fashion of illegal races in shopping centers that worries France

A few days ago, three motorcyclists entered a shopping center in Nantes, in the west of the country, and began to circulate with their two-wheeled vehicles on a moving strip before the stupefied gaze of the customers who were in the center doing their shopping. They improvised a race in the middle of the commercial gallery, where there were also children and older people. It is not the first time it happens. The so-called “urban rodeos”, illegal races in public places, have been widespread in the country for some time, terrifying citizens and increasingly worrying law enforcement.

The drivers are usually young people who break into spaces with people on their motorcycles, drive recklessly, without a helmet, do stunts, raise the wheels and then upload the videos to social networks, mainly TikTok.. They want, above all, to show off and attract attention, but they also like the challenge: the one that involves riding on some mechanical treadmills, for example.. In addition to themselves, they put the people around them at risk.

The phenomenon is not new, it was imported from the US (where it is called bike life) and the French government already took measures last summer, after several accidents with injuries, although the latest fashion now is to do it inside shopping malls, in corridors , where there are families and people who go to do their shopping. They carry scooters, but also motorcycles with more displacement. There are also those who go on a scooter. It is not easy to identify them, because some go with their faces covered, at full speed and dodge the security agents of the centers.

In recent weeks there have been several of these races in commercial areas and this worries law enforcement. In addition to the Nantes incident, there was recently another such illegal rodeo in a shopping center near Grenoble.. The video, in which several young people were seen riding their motorcycles doing wheelies in the middle of the corridor of the shopping arcade, was published on TikTok and quickly went viral, with millions of views.

In Lyon several young people were arrested also implicated in a rodeo in Villefontaine, near the city. In this case, it was a dozen boys who robbed a commercial gallery of brands. It was at six in the evening, so the center was full of customers. Hours later, another second motocross circuit took place in a Carrefour in another neighborhood of Lyon.

The Ministry of the Interior has intensified controls, they already amount to 38,000 so far this year, and there have been 6,900 operations by law enforcement to try to prevent this illegal and dangerous practice. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin asked the agents a week ago to “strengthen controls” and “intervene the vehicles used.”

“I ask you to take, without delay, the necessary measures to fight against this phenomenon that puts citizens in danger,” claimed the minister in a note addressed to the agents. According to Darmanin, since March 1, 6,900 operations to combat it have been carried out throughout France, with 350 detainees, 7,000 interrogated and the intervention of 100 motorcycles.

Last summer, given the increase in this type of actions, Interior already announced more severe measures. It was after two children, ages seven and eleven, were injured in one of these urban rodeos.. 2022 was a black year in this sense. There were six deaths, 2,200 arrests and 1,800 confiscated vehicles, a record.

Police unions say that many times the perpetrators of these offenses are not prosecuted to avoid accidents. Some ask that measures such as those that exist in England be applied, which allow agents to intercept the motorcycle. At the moment this tactic is not allowed in France.

For the security agents of the centers it is difficult to intercept them because they enter through areas not open to traffic, where they are not expected. In the case of the Grenoble rodeo, the management of the shopping center explained to France Info that “it was a brief intrusion of five individuals with electric motorcycles, who circulated for a minute.”

“The rapid intervention of the agents has caused their immediate flight. There have been no damages or injuries. The individuals entered through an access that was not open to traffic,” says the center, which adds that “to protect customers from any intrusion into the parking lots, complementary measures will be taken.”

In 2018, the French Parliament approved a law that punishes participation in these urban rodeos with up to five years in prison.. In 2017, the police registered 8,700 “rodeos” in urban areas, and the gendarmerie 6,614 in rural areas.

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