News Break: Arrests Made in Metro Vandalism Case
The news broke last night, almost as a collective relief: specialized units have apprehended the young individuals who, on Thursday, smashed the windows of two metro trains on line 5. A stone-throwing attack in the early evening paralyzed traffic for twenty minutes. This time, impunity did not have the last word. One would be tempted to say: finally!
These scenes are no longer isolated incidents; they have become symptoms. Symptoms of a silent laxity, of a prolonged erosion of parental authority, but also of the absence of firm and consistent signals from institutions. For years, attacks on public equipment - metros, buses, bus shelters - have accumulated, as if the city itself had to tolerate adolescents transforming public space into a testing ground for their deviances.
The Transtu has confirmed it: the policy now displayed is one of zero tolerance. But a society cannot protect itself solely through sporadic arrests. It must equip itself with consistency. And this consistency begins with an obvious fact: when a minor attacks a metro train, it is not only the windows that crack, but an entire system of responsibility.
This is not a call for blind repression or to transform justice into a social guillotine. It is a reminder that education is not a slogan, but a commitment. In several countries, parents are civilly and criminally responsible for their children's actions.
The question deserves to be asked here: why is a 15-year-old minor circulating freely at the time when traffic ends? Why can entire groups of adolescents gather in the street, armed with stones, without anyone questioning the origin of this nocturnal wandering?
Removing a few vandals from the anonymity of their deviances is a first step. The next step will be to demand accountability where authority is supposed to begin: at home. Because violence is never spontaneous; it takes root in often invisible, sometimes trivialized failures. A society that respects itself must protect its infrastructure, but also its own benchmarks. Zero tolerance, to be effective, must become a collective contract: one that binds the state, institutions, and especially families.
Tonight, the transporters are breathing a sigh of relief. Tomorrow, we will have to go further. Because public safety is not decreed: it is taught, it is embodied, and above all, it is shared.
