ABOUT POLICE VIOLENCE IN FRANCE

The ecologist protesters of Extinction Rebellion, who were participating in a peaceful (but undeclared) rally to block a bridge in Paris on Friday, were dispersed manu militari by the police. Images of tear gas and dragged militants provoked many indignant reactions.

"Police, gently, we do that for your children! ".

About 300 activists of the group Extinction Rebellion organized, Friday, June 28, a blocking operation of the bridge of Sully, in Paris. This group, born in late 2018 in the United Kingdom, calls for non-violent civil disobedience against "climate inaction". They were quickly and violently dislodged by the police

Pacifist protesters dislodged by tear gas

Around noon, after blocking some streets of the 4th arrondissement, the militants joined the bridge of Sully for a "festive" event. The demonstration had not been declared officially, but the prefecture had been warned the day before the mobilization.

The intervention of the police was muscular: the police sprinkled with tear gas the militants.

A report was requested from the police prefect

Following this evacuation, Christophe Castaner asked a report to the Paris police chief on the "modalities" of the evacuation. "At the request of the Minister, a technical inspection was launched and a report was requested to the Prefect of Police on how to manage this operation of law and order made necessary to restore traffic in the heart of Paris," he said. said the Ministry of the Interior.

The blocking of the Sully bridge, which links the 4th and 5th arrondissements, hindered the traffic routes, while France was going through a period of heatwave and alternating traffic was imposed in the capital that day.

According to the police headquarters, the police intervened to "stop the obstruction of the traffic generated by this action". After asking the officials "several times to disperse" and "in the face of their refusal to leave the premises," summonses were made without more success, said the prefecture. "This rally was later dispelled by the police," said the administration, which states that two people were placed in custody for offense of obstruction of traffic.

Criticism of law enforcement by the government?

"When I saw that, I asked myself questions and watched the video as a whole," said Ecology Minister François de Rugy, asked about this episode on Sunday on BFMTV.

Government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye was more vocal on LCI: "I believe the activists in question were participating in a rally that was neither declared nor authorized. But "it does not justify gassing in the face and with such proximity, of course," she added.

As a reminder, tear gas can not be used within one meter and only to disperse violent demonstrations and not peaceful demonstrations. The police response was disproportionate, it seems.

The use of legitimate violence against troublemakers?

As it has been in certain manifestations of the "Yellow Vests" so that the act XII "Yellow Vests" had been planned as a "white march" in Paris for the wounded demonstrators.

"Today, there are 2,000 of which a hundred seriously affected," denounced Maxime Nicolle, one of the figures of the dispute. This was confirmed by the militant group "Disarming them." They lost an eye after a shot of LBD, a hand after the explosion of tear gas grenades GLI-F4, or were wounded by shots of pounding grenade DMP . Among them, Jérôme Rodrigues wounded in the eye by a shot of LBD or fragments of grenade DMP, he who filmed the rally place de la Bastille.

As much as they are to be seen, they denounced the use of these weapons by the police at the same time as they denounced "police violence".

The French government, for its part, defended the need for these weapons to avoid violent direct contacts and more injuries between protesters and police.

"What I know is that if we take them away from our police, what's left of them? They still have the body-to-body or their service weapon. I do not wish that they use their service weapon, and I wish to avoid the body-to-body. ". The speech of the Ministry of the Interior is that if we suppress them, the police will have no choice but to resort to their firearms and that there will be deaths. And the Council of State, seized in urgency, to reject the requests for suspension of the use of the launcher of defense bullets (LBD), believing that the risk of violence made it "necessary to allow the police to resort to these weapons ". But this speech sounds wrong in comparison to what is happening in other democracies.

In 2016, the Catholic Association against Torture and the Death Penalty (ACAT), published a report investigating police violence in France, entitled "Order and strength": the human toll is already heavy. The 112-page dossier, based among other things on the work done by Ivan Du Roy and Ludo Symbille, already highlights between 10 and 15 deaths per year and calls into question the use of sub-lethal weapons (LBD, Taser) and Police detective techniques (folding, ventral plating) in this one.

Convictions of international bodies of the use of LBD

On 14 February, a group of experts from the UN Human Rights Council issued a ground-breaking communiqué on the subject, saying that "the right to demonstrate in France has been disproportionately restricted" while giving the figure of 1700 wounded.

On 25 February, the Council of Europe calls on France to suspend the use of LBDs.

"The injuries caused by LBD shots reveal a disproportionate use of force, as well as the maladjustment of this type of weapon in the context of law enforcement operations," noted the Commissioner of Human Rights. Man of the ECHR, Dunja Mijatovic, in a ten-page memorandum.

And finally, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has not failed to ask that France investigate police violence that has occurred during the Yellow Vest demonstrations since then. mid-November in a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva "We encourage the (French) government to continue the dialogue and urgently call for an in-depth investigation of all reported cases of excessive use of force Michelle Bachelet continued, putting France on the same list as Venezuela or Haiti.

The use of legitimate violence against troublemakers? Yet the same injury can be the result of legitimate and illegitimate violence

So much so that the parquet floor of Paris opened several preliminary inquiries

On Monday, 1 July, he also announced that he had opened a preliminary inquiry into "willful violence by a person in the custody of the public authority", in order to shed light on the conditions of this muscular evacuation. Being a "depositary of public authority" may also constitute an "aggravating circumstance" under Articles 222-12 and 222-24 of the Penal Code.

The subject of police violence must no longer be treated in the manner of the blunder, the exception, the accident, the slippage but not as part of an economic, political, social system, according to the researcher Mathieu Rigouste.

"What police, for what missions? What connections between the police and the government, what control of citizens over the police? "So the question arises.