Five-year-old boy shot in Rennes: boy's health critical

An Opel Astra, in which a father and his five-year-old son were travelling, was chased by several armed, hooded men on 26 October. The young boy, hit in the head by two projectiles, is still in a critical condition.

Drug trafficking is once again rampant in the Rennes metropolitan area: this Saturday, October 26 at 10:15 p.m., the town of Pacé, in Ille-et-Vilaine, was hit by an armed attack based on a settling of scores. A father, aged 29 according to information from Agence France Presse (AFP), was driving his son to his mother's house, who lives in Vezin-le-Coquet, near Rennes. On the road, he reportedly said he had been “pursued by a vehicle and had turned around near Pac”. After leaving the Maurepas district, he was pursued for several kilometres by a Peugeot 3008. According to the father, the attackers then opened fire for a few seconds. The suspects, still on the run, were hooded and armed with four 7.62 caliber ammunition casings, discovered on the scene, AFP reported.

A resident, interviewed by Le Télégramme, gave some testimony on the circumstances of the tragedy: “We heard her crying at times. And her father screaming next to her, it was shocking.” The main victim of this chase, the toddler, was placed in the back of the vehicle. The father reportedly “felt a jolt before discovering his injured child”, the deputy public prosecutor, Jean-Marie Blin, said in a press release.

Another witness to the scene also shared his emotion on RMC on Monday, October 28: “I heard screams just below my window. I simply saw a father holding his child in his arms, kneeling on the ground. I quickly went down, having called for help. And with several people who had stopped at the side of the road, we quickly realized that the little boy had been shot in the head. We were at about three people on top of the child trying to keep him alive until help arrived, which fortunately arrived very quickly.”

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“The child's life is in danger”

Medical teams were called at 10:30 p.m. On site, they treated the injured man before taking him to Rennes hospital as an emergency. Due to the bursts of gunfire, two projectiles lodged in the little boy's head and cheek. Operated on during the night, he is currently hospitalized and the viral prognosis is engaged. according to Jean-Marie Blin. This Monday, October 28, according to information from Franceinfo, the child is still in a critical condition, and his chances of survival are still slim.

Despite the scale of the shooting, the suspects are still on the run. Masked at the time of the incident, they could not be identified. As for the father, who emerged unharmed from the attack, he has already been convicted of acts related to drug trafficking, according to sources confirming BFMTV.

“We are reaching the height of criminality and horror,” David Leveau, regional secretary of the police union Unité in Brittany, was alarmed, speaking to France Bleu Armorique on Monday, October 28. Drug trafficking is at the heart of concerns in the city of Rennes, where conflicts have been breaking out regularly in recent months. Between March and October 2024, around ten drug trafficking-related score-settling incidents were recorded. They took place everywhere, in the middle of the street as well as in the city centre. Earlier in the day, shootings had taken place in the Maurepas district, Ouest-France points out.

In response to This new catastrophe, the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau reacted on the social network X: “The gangrene of drug trafficking is rotting entire neighborhoods, all over the territory. The war that we must wage must be total.” The Minister's demands for firmness have already earned remonstrances from the environmentalist mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle on Franceinfo, Monday October 28: “Instead of tackling the underlying problems, Mr. Retailleau is leading us on a wild goose chase” he chided.