First there was this feeling of oppression in front of the stage, in the heart of the compact and overexcited crowd massed in front of the latest DJ of the moment. Then this thought, very clear. “With everything that is happening at the moment, it is important not that I lose my girlfriends in such a big place”. At the beginning of March, Charlotte attends one of her first concerts in a nightclub, at the WareHouse in Nantes. At 19, the student chose not to drink a single drop of alcohol – she does not want to take any risks. For the past few weeks, some young people of his age have been multiplying testimonies on social networks or in the local press, indicating that they have been victims of syringe attacks in different clubs in Nantes, Lille or Rennes. “But as usual, we always tell ourselves that it can’t happen to us,” Charlotte breathes. Glued against the hundreds of revelers, she suddenly feels a hand that searches the pockets of his pants. The Nantaise turns around quickly to check that someone is not stealing her pack of cigarettes, then resumes dancing. A fragment of seconds later, she feels her arm going numb, becoming “very hot and very heavy”. The young woman is dizzy, alerts her group of friends, leaves the crowd and the strobes to observe her arm. “I had a hole in my skin,” she says.
The guards take his case very seriously, and send him directly to a nurse present on site, who confirms a needle stick. The Samu quickly recovers her, and Charlotte spends the next five hours at the Nantes University Hospital. The drug analyzes all came back negative: no trace of GHB – better known as the date rape drug – was found in his body. But without further information on the number of victims affected by the same syringe, the young girl must be placed on preventive treatment post-exposure to HIV. “It screwed up my stomach, I had pain all the time, no appetite, I felt it was heavy. I stopped voluntarily after receiving the first negative tests, because I couldn’t take it anymore “, she explains. She will need to be tested regularly for the next six months to make sure she hasn’t contracted the virus.
And like a majority of her friends, Charlotte draws a final line on future nightclub outings. “I no longer want to find myself in places full of people, nor to have this feeling that anyone can stick to you, attack you”, she argues. On social networks, she is not the only one to show her disappointment. On student groups on Facebook or under the #BalanceTonBar on Twitter, many are those who testify to their anger or their anguish, and to affirm that they now favor evenings in apartments to avoid such attacks. “Obviously, it changes the relationship of young people to the party. Those who have experienced the aggression sometimes take months to come out, while others are worried about what could happen to them if they simply decide to go dancing. with friends”, regrets Heina*, co-spokesperson for Heroines 95 without borders. His collective, which fights in particular against the phenomenon of aggression by chemical submission, is worried. Because the cases of stings in the evening, initially isolated, continue to multiply everywhere in France.
“I do not want anymore”
To date, no less than 18 complaints have, for example, been filed in Grenoble for stings observed in four clubs and a concert hall, 14 have been filed in Béziers for attacks that took place on the night of April 17 to 18 alone. last, and nearly 50 facts were listed in Nantes within 18 different establishments… “Some victims feel a sting but no symptoms, others experience discomfort, vomiting, dizziness, or even loss of memory temporary”, describes the city prosecutor, Renaud Gaudeul. But for the moment, no toxicological analysis for GHB or other toxins of the same nature has come back positive. “This can be explained in particular by the speed with which this type of product disappears from the body, but these are only suppositions”, adds the prosecutor, who says he is “very unable” to analyze the reason for such acts. . “Because another particularity of these attacks is that we have so far had no reports of assaults, sexual assaults or thefts from the victims”. In Grenoble, his colleague Eric Vaillant is assailed by the same doubts. “It’s part of the questions: who are the aggressors, what are they really injecting and why? Do they just want to hurt? Create a psychosis? We are investigating it,” he confirms. “Even if it is always very delicate and difficult to find the suspects in this type of business,” he added.
In the meantime, the pressure is mounting among the revelers. In Montpellier, Caroline* entered the campaign to dissuade her friends and her roommate from going out to nightclubs, after one of her friends was stung in a club in the city. Like Charlotte, the latter must now take preventive treatment against HIV, and has become “very emotionally fragile”. In the business school where she studies, her classmates are beginning to worry. “Everyone talks about it. They agree to go to a bar, have a beer … But more necessarily to go dancing. And for me, clubs are now excluded”. In Béziers, Lisa also shares the “additional anxiety” that invades her at the idea of going out to a nightclub. A few weeks ago, one of her friends was also bitten in a bar atmosphere. “These syringe attack stories have clearly calmed me down,” she says, annoyed. While she went dancing “at least once a week” before, Lisa has only gone out once in the past two months. “I don’t feel like it anymore. Now it’s an apartment or house party… Even if I would like to be able to party without worrying about all that”. And when she walks through the doors of a club, the young woman has changed her habits: she stays permanently with three or four girlfriends, and has even created a sign of recognition in the event of a problem. “We discreetly place two fingers on the forehead. It means: something is wrong, help me. We use it no matter what the problem is… Here we are”.
“We feel helpless”
To avoid a drop in attendance at their establishments and ensure the safety of their customers, some managers are working hard. In Béziers, Benoît Bienvenu, director of L’Usine à Gaz, is one of the few bosses concerned to respond to requests from the media. “It’s important to show that we support the victims, and that we are doing everything we can to protect them,” he said. On the night of April 7 to 8, a first victim was stung in his nightclub during a student party. During the Easter weekend, a week later, a dozen other young people suffered the same syringe attacks. “We called the police directly, we searched the establishment, but we found nothing,” he laments. Since then, the man has indicated that he is cooperating fully with the investigators, and has invested more than 20,000 euros in “more efficient” communication and video systems in order to quickly find the perpetrators in the event of a bite. “If we find one, I might as well tell you that it will be zero tolerance”. And for good reason: the weekend following these attacks, Benoît Bienvenu claims to have lost 50% of his turnover.
“For the moment, I only feel a very slight drop in clientele: 850 people instead of 1,000 last weekend for example. But is it directly linked to these cases? I don’t know”, underlines de his side Alex Karimi, manager of the Alpha Club of Grenoble. According to the city prosecutor, a victim filed a complaint after being bitten there on the night of April 15 to 16. “We did not know or see anything the same evening. But we are doubling our vigilance”, indicates the boss, who is increasing the searches at the entrance and has made available to his customers an anti-drug saliva test. Because despite the confidence of his regulars, Alex Karimi notices that some customers panic “faster than usual” at each discomfort or heat stroke during an evening too drunk. “They immediately think they have been stung, so we quickly reassure them with this test. Many young people are afraid, we feel it”. Since mid-April, no other customer has been the victim of a sting in his establishment. “The managers are doing what they can, but I admit that we fear a drop in attendance. And above all, we feel helpless in the face of these staggering attacks”, insists Thierry Fontaine, president of the UMIH Nuit union. The man recalls that these syringes are indeed easily concealed at the bottom of a pocket or under a coat, and are too small to be spotted with a metal detector. The surveillance cameras, they remain very difficult to use on a dark track populated by dancers. “We will have to put the means into prevention. Because we cannot ask young people to stop going out either, or to go party with a coat of mail”.