Nearly 145 Report Being Jabbed With Needles at French Music Festival

French police detained 12 people on Sunday after 145 individuals reported being pricked with syringes during a nationwide street music festival, according to France’s interior ministry.

Millions of people took to the streets across France on Saturday evening for the Fête de la Musique, with authorities reporting “unprecedented crowds” in Paris.

The feminist influencer Abrège Soeur warned online before the festival that calls had been made on social media for women to be targeted with syringes. Where such postings would have been placed or by whom was unclear.

According to the interior ministry, 145 individuals nationwide had claimed being stabbed with needles at outdoor music events all throughout the nation. Paris police reported 13 cases in the capital.

Officials did not say if these were cases of so-called needle spiking with date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol or GHB, used by attackers to render victims confused or unconscious and vulnerable to sexual assault.

“Some victims were taken to hospital for toxicological tests,” the ministry said.

In Paris, prosecutors said investigations were opened after three people, including a 15-year-old girl and an 18-year-old man, reported being pricked in separate incidents across the city. All three said to be sick.

Across France, 12 suspects have been arrested, the interior ministry said. Four individuals in the southwest city of Angoulême allegedly targeted over fifty victims, according a police source.

Suspected of syringe assaults, two males were also detained in the northern city of Metz. The regional public broadcaster France 3 reported that one man had been caught with a syringe and a woman who complained of being stabbed with one had recognised the other.

The local prosecutor’s office in Metz said the alleged victims were believed to be under 18. A male twenty years old among the claimed suspects has past violent behavior under police observation.

The local public radio station Ici France reported that several young women had complained of being stabbed with syringes in Évreux and Rouen in Normandy. One woman thought a needle had been inserted in her left arm and was rushed to the hospital complaining of discomfort there. In the western city of Tours, 13 women complained to fire services on duty at a music event that someone had been pricked them with a syringe.

The renewed fears of syringe attacks come as Paris prepares for its summer music festival season.

More than 370 people were detained during this weekend’s nationwide music festival on various charges, including nearly 90 people in Paris.

Fourteen participants in the festivities were seriously injured, including a 17-year-old hospitalised after being found sitting on the street with stab wounds to the lower abdomen.

Thirteen members of law enforcement were also injured.