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French police have detained 12 suspects after 145 people reported being pricked with syringes during the country's annual street music festival, officials said Sunday.

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

Before the party, posts on social media had called for women to be targeted during the festivities.

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[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 188 points 1 month ago

Tangentially, I was chatting with the owner of my local pub in Boston recently, and apparently it’s become something of a game (?!?!?!?!?) to try to slip people mickeys around here. As in, just see if you can sneak it into the drink, with no real intent of abuse or rape or whatever - just to see if you can do it.

I fucking hate humans sometimes.

[-] flightyhobler@lemmy.world 131 points 1 month ago

Is that what they say once they get caught, or do they tell that story just in case they get caught in the future?

No idea. If I caught someone doing it, I wouldn’t talk to them about what their rationale was. I’d throw my beer at them and then yell for the bouncer that some guy was trying to slip shit into drinks.

[-] angrystego@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

There are many more dumb assholes than rapists. I believe people who do this just for fun, not for rape, do exist. It's quite terrible anyway.

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 25 points 1 month ago

Tangentially, I was chatting with the owner of my local pub in Boston recently, and apparently it’s become something of a game (?!?!?!?!?) to try to slip people mickeys around here.

In some time periods in some places in the world, getting a hand cut off was punishment for theft. While that is a bit extreme, maybe assholes convicted of this should lose the final knuckle of their pinky finger as punishment for drugging people at bars.

[-] Klear@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 month ago

There is a reason civilized countries don't do punishments like this any more - they don't work.

[-] Honytawk@feddit.nl 10 points 1 month ago

And you are never ever 100% certain they did it, even with eye witnesses.

So cutting fingers of innocent people is also a nono

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago

It should be something easy to see. Part of the advantage of cutting off someone's hand isn't just the punishment, it's a marker that a person is a thief that they can't get rid of. Ideally it'd be something obvious and easy to see, that's also uncommon enough naturally that you know what happened.

[-] emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 month ago

I mean i could see this actually being a good stunt to raise awareness about it. Like use something fake and safe like a time release tablet that makes the drink fizz up suddenly 30 seconds later, or causes the whole thing to turn colour rapidly or something. But i doubt thats whats happening. Might make for a funny party theme with a close group of friends who are all in on it and targeting each other though.

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[-] 4am@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 month ago

Nah, plenty of SA happening in Boston bars, and has been for like 10 years now in this recent “wave” where incidents have been increasing.

Motherfuckers just never knew how to have a good time.

[-] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Fuck, this was happening when my younger sister was going to bars. It wasn't a thing I was aware of when I was younger. But I remember my sister saying 15 years ago that people were slipping drugs into drinks for this same reason. It was just to fuck with people

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[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 50 points 1 month ago

called for women to be targeted during the festivities

Do we know more? Was this supposed to just scare them or did they actually get injected with something?

[-] TherapyGary 32 points 1 month ago

Officials did not say if these were cases of so-called needle spiking with date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol or GHB

Some victims were taken to hospital for toxicological tests

investigations were opened after three people... reported feeling unwell.

[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 16 points 1 month ago

after three people... reported feeling unwell.

Well that's fair enough at any rate. So maybe at least this didn't get anyone seriously injured.

[-] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago

Article said cops were injured but didn't give details.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Cops love to dramatize exposure to any kind of drug. Case in point, a series of hoax claims about police nearly dying from mere proximity to fentanyl.

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[-] HuskerNation@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 month ago

10-15 years ago it was definitely a thing. I remember posts about it on reddit, back when reddit was good. Eventually after it blew up a lot of bars started doing the angel drinks or messages in the bathroom. Bunch of women were targeted

[-] bytesonbike@discuss.online 16 points 1 month ago

Yep. In the 2000s, my town had a serious scare. I lived in a small town at the time near a major music fest, and the town handed out flyers about watching yourself because we had a bunch of roofie incidents.

One festival mocked our town for it and called us assholes/cops. Because that festival were like pro date-rape or some shit? Festival doesn't exist anymore.

But I'll never forget how many naive tourist girls who would get the flyer, laugh, and go, "Why would anyone do this haha!" And don't take this stuff seriously.

I feel like social media has been a huge help at identifying shit behavior.

[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago

Super frustrating article to read.

[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 10 points 1 month ago

Fucking tell me about it 😂

[-] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 5 points 1 month ago

Consent to cookies OR ELSE

[-] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 45 points 1 month ago

This is a panic that has come and gone multiple times even just during my lifetime. I remember the first time I heard about it was visitors to neighboring Tijuana with HIV infected blood on the 80s. Never once has it actually been confirmed to have happened.

These are 145 self reports. Nothing confirmed. No video evidence.

Plenty of resources available for this panic.

[-] Rachelhazideas@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago

Of course the 145 police reports don't count. This is 145 women were talking about.

[-] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

During the 80s example I gave it was men that were reporting it.

[-] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Anyone can file a police report. And if they believe they were a victim then they are more likely to do that.

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[-] sfjvvssss@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Wait, are you trying to tell us that this is not true because there is no video evidence? Just hundreds of women being in panic? Wtf

[-] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

I'm saying that in the past every incidence or this has been alleged turned out to be mass panic. And at today's age of constant video surveillance there would be evidence, not just reports. So either this is the very first case in the world where this is actually true and we will find that out through the evidence or we're going to find out that it's not true and then it matches all the previous events. But police reports do not make something real.

I'm asking people to look at the evidence.

[-] ReiRose@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

145 women speaking up is evidence of this happening

[-] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

145 people that think something happened isn't evidence. Every case in the past had lots of people absolutely convinced it happened.

So let's take this to the next step. There is video surveillance because every venue does these days. They pull the video. They watch the video. They follow the movements of every person. They see who bumped into who. If the video shows one or more people ranging too far to too many people and getting close when there is plenty of space and shows them dumping the evidence then we have actual proof that backs up the claims. Toxicology tests were performed. We find that there is something in the blood that shouldn't be there.

You and each of the others here that are absolutely convinced that this time is the one time in history that this actually happened get vindicated.

But what if the video doesn't show it? What if the toxicology is completely normal? Are you going to regret being so absolutely sure? Are you going to come back here and say "okay, I was wrong."

I'm asking that you wait until the evidence is evaluated to make a decision. Reports aren't proof. Evidence is proof. And given the history of this type of claim a little proof before judgment is absolutely warranted.

This also happened in France in 2022. People were detained, preliminary charges filed. And then the cases vanished. Not great reports of convictions. No "there is nothing to worry about, the criminals have he brought to justice."

In this current case they have arrested maybe a dozen. If they are guilty then throw the book at them. But the guilty should come only after the evidence has been evaluated. And a report is not evidence. That's suspicion.

[-] ReiRose@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

This is a good response. And I did read the wiki you shared. In regards to video evidence, this festival had a lot of non-venue performances, I just don't know where the people were when they said they'd been poked. Also, it's easier to prove this than disprove it. For example if the tox report is negative then maybe theres something that wasn't texted for, or maybe the point is fear. People could be going around with pins rather than syringes. Of course no evidence means no conviction, and some people doubting what they thought they experienced. For me 145 people claiming something happened is evidence that something happened. (Ranging from 145 hallucinating or colluding all the way to 145 being targeted by a nefarious needle gang.)

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[-] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago

People have different definitions of major incidents apparently...

"including a 17-year-old who was hospitalized after being found sitting on the street with stab wounds to the lower abdomen."

"The prefect of the Paris police, Laurent Nunez, said that "no major incident has been reported.""

[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 month ago

A single person being stabbed isn't a "major incident" if you're the chief of police or whatever a prefect is.

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[-] kerrigan778 8 points 1 month ago

I believe (and hope) that it's just ambiguously written, the first part is discussing incidents throughout the country while the prefect was obviously just talking about Paris.

A lot of oddly worded bits in that article.

[-] xiwi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 month ago

Jfc what the fuck

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago

Oh cool. We're doing another needle panic

Britian went through this just three years earlier.

Their experiences were shared on social media, along with photographs of apparent puncture wounds. Groups were formed to warn of the dangers of needle spiking, politicians called for investigations, and by February 2022, over 1,300 reports of needle spiking had been made to police over the previous 6 months (Wynn-Davies, 2022).

...

Many victims claimed they only had a few drinks and were not drunk. However, an Australian study of suspected incidents of drink spiking found that self-reports of alcohol consumption are often unreliable. One 17-year-old girl was taken to hospital after having only one glass of vodka. However, on further questioning, she ‘remembered’ having beer and whisky. The study also analyzed the blood and urine of patients who presented at hospital emergency departments. Of 97 patients, none had traces of a sedative in their systems (Quigley et al., 2009).

[-] Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

The people planning this and walking around doing the pricking...

There's a classic death metal song by Cannibal Corpse called "Hammer Smashed Face".

[-] SoleInvictus 18 points 1 month ago

And that 145 is just those who noticed. I regularly have to self administer injections and they're often nearly painless once you're used to doing it, especially with small gauge needles.

[-] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 month ago

Could someone please shoot whoever wrote the headline?

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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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