As every night since the fuse was caught last Friday in (40,000 inhabitants), the residents of the San Antonio neighborhood, mostly of Maghreb origin, have concentrated around 9 pm in one of the corners of the neighborhood, armored each entrance and exit by cars of the Civil Guard. At the meeting, the magnets of the four mosques of the municipality and some neighborhood leaders have called for calm. A message dedicated especially to the youngest, who expected a confrontation with ultras groups that has not finally occurred. This Monday has been the first night with relative calm since the ultra -right groups undertook a hunt against young people of Moroccan origin of the town. “We want this not to go anymore. It is best for everyone to go to their homes,” one of them said to a hooded crowd.
“We are not going to open a business until this does not calm,” said Allal Abbou, owner of a neighborhood cafeteria and one of the neighborhood leaders. After Sunday’s attack on a Kebab from the neighborhood by about 40 men in black and baseball bats, many of the residents of San Antonio have decided to close their stores, restaurants or warehouses as of this Tuesday to prevent something like that can happen to them too.
Although the elders tried to contain the tension that the municipality has been accumulating for four nights, the mission did not seem simple. No neighbor of this neighborhood has slept calmly since dozens of men armed with sticks and bates, shouting “shit moors”, broke into the streets where the majority of Maghreb origin lives and since then few dare to go out to do any message alone. Therefore, while the leaders spoke to the youngest, they listened and seemed to obey while looking sideways at their neighborhood’s main street. “This is very hot. People are afraid and when you have been in tension for several days, everything can explode for anything,” said one of them, with a face covered with a shirt, which has preferred not to give their name.
Until 12.30 in the morning on Tuesday there was no trace of any strangers in the vicinity of the neighborhood. But few were not able to appear the ultras at any time, as the previous night, which were direct against the Kebab and. For that suspicion, when most of the concentration had dissolved, a minority group of about one hundred people ran towards one of the police controls, which forced a deployment of a dozen civil guard agents who ended up close close and dispersing them in a nearby field.
Despite the absence of confrontations, fear survives in the town, converted when it dusk into a ghost town in almost all the streets surrounding the neighborhood. The closure of businesses that have announced for this Tuesday is the last measure of a place located by terror, becoming the epicenter of racist hatred of ultras throughout the country.
