France's deadly 'urban rodeo' bikers prompt crackdown

The French government has promised that every police station will step up its patrols to curb street stunts

It is a summer scourge in France's suburbs that has left young people dead and injured amid complaints that the government is failing to act.

Youths on motorbikes, scooters and other vehicles have taken over streets, carrying out high-speed stunts in what have become known as urban rodeos.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin says 2,200 arrests have been made this year.

And he has promised that every police station will carry out at least three "anti-rodeo" operations every day.

Only this week a 19-year-old man was killed when he lost control of the motorbike he was riding in Marseille.

Local reports say he was doing a wheelie on his powerful new 650cc bike in front of a friend when he lost his balance, hit the pavement and crashed into a pole. He had no licence and no insurance.

"We know from witnesses who were there that this young man was evidently doing urban rodeo with a high-powered motorbike and lost control," said local police prefect Frédérique Camilleri. "It's truly tragic and my thoughts go out to his family and friends because it's traumatic for everybody."

But it is not just the bikers getting caught up in the deadly races.

In June, a young man was killed when he was hit by a biker in Rennes. Then, earlier this month, a seven-year-old girl called Kenya was playing with a friend on a basketball court in Pontoise, northwest of Paris, when they were knocked down by an 18-year-old biker. The girl was in a coma for days with a severe head injury.

Last weekend a 27-year-old Afghan man was fatally shot after challenging a group of young bikers doing stunts on the streets of Colmar in the north-east. He had been having a barbecue with friends when the row began.

The latest casualties of the urban rodeo bikers have prompted an outcry. After the two children were run over while playing tag late in the evening in Pontoise, the girl's mother accused the government of failing to act: "They were in an area reserved for children, not motorbikes."

The interior minister then labelled the rodeos as criminal acts and announced more frequent patrols.

The fatal shooting in Colmar prompted a group of demonstrators to march to the local police station carrying pictures of the dead victim. Quayyem Abdul Ahmadzai was a refugee whose wife and children were reportedly still in Afghanistan.

For residents in Pontoise the rodeos are nothing new: "That's why I rarely ever go for a walk with my little one, especially in the spring or winter - I was worried this would happen," one father told Le Parisien.

One biker in the northern suburbs of Paris said in his part of the world there was nothing else to do. "It's either that or selling drugs and we preferred biking better," Karim told RTL radio. "We saw the older guys, tried it out and we're now doing it too."

A 2018 law criminalised urban rodeos with a possible jail term of one to five years, but Pontoise Mayor Stéphanie Von Euw told French media they were powerless to stop the bikers as the law was not strong enough: "The offenders have to be caught red-handed."