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Report nowAfter two evenings of rioting, calm has apparently returned to the Prélaz district of Lausanne. After the death of a 17-year-old, young people had clashed with the police in several neighborhoods.
By midnight on Tuesday, there were no further riots, as journalists present at the scene reported to the Keystone-SDA news agency. Although there were some people outside in the neighborhood, the situation remained peaceful. Police cars were on the scene.
On Tuesday morning, Lausanne city councillor Pierre-Antoine Hildbrand (FDP), who is responsible for the police, announced an increase in the preventive presence to prevent a third night of riots.
There had been riots in Prélaz on the two previous evenings. Young people had gathered near the place where a 17-year-old - black - scooter rider had had a fatal accident on Sunday while fleeing from the police. Property was damaged, garbage cans were set on fire and pyrotechnics were thrown at the police, among other things. The police responded with tear gas and used a water cannon. According to the cantonal police of Vaud, there were no injuries. According to the police, seven people were arrested.
For the second evening in a row, riots broke out in the Prélaz district of Lausanne.
Image: Keystone
There was already a similar case in Lausanne in June. Back then, a 14-year-old girl crashed a motorcycle while fleeing from the police and later died as a result of her injuries.
The riots are taking place in a special context, writes the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper on Wednesday morning: nowhere else in Switzerland have so many - black - people died as a result of police violence as in the canton of Vaud. At the same time, it became known this week that there is a racism problem in the Lausanne police force.
On Monday, the Lausanne public prosecutor's office also revealed WhatsApp chat groups in which police officers exchanged racist, sexist, anti-Semitic or discriminatory messages. Mayor Grégoire Junod (SP) spoke of "a problem of systemic racism". The first police officers have already been suspended - the city has announced far-reaching reforms.
The protests on Monday were fueled by these revelations about the Lausanne police. In addition, a new report presented on Monday questions whether a Zurich man of South African origin was shot dead by police in self-defense at Morges VD station in 2021.
Some media reports are already comparing the recent nights of rioting with conditions in French banlieues. For Roman Fillinger, SRF's correspondent for French-speaking Switzerland, however, this is an exaggeration. "Prélaz is certainly not an easy neighborhood. There are great social contrasts, certain tensions and the proportion of migrants is high," said Fillinger in an SRF report.
However, Prélaz cannot be compared with suburbs such as Paris or Marseille, where the rule of law has eroded and gang violence is rampant. However, it is quite conceivable that banlieue riots and questionable influencers from the scene have an impact on young people in French-speaking Switzerland. It is also important to say that no one has been injured so far, the SRF correspondent continued.
Fillinger called for differentiation: "In the two chases, the young people still caused accidents themselves. The other are cases in which men died in police custody." If it is also confirmed that the teenager who died in the accident at the weekend was wearing a helmet, it would be questionable to hastily explain the police operation with systemic racism.
Damage is being repaired after the riots in Prélaz.
Image: Keystone
At the same time, Fillinger emphasizes that the chat histories within the Lausanne police force that recently became public leave little doubt that there is a problem with systemic racism.
27.08.2025, 00:30
27.08.2025, 07:40
