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French policemen cite fatigue in abuse probe

French policemen said they were "mentally exhausted" when they were recorded threatening arrested protesters, in a case that has triggered an investigation, an internal report showed Friday.

Published: 8 April 2023 12:34 CEST
French riot police in Paris
French riot police officers walk past as fire during a demonstration at Place d'Italie in Paris. Photo: Alain JOCARD / AFP

Members of a Paris motorbike police unit are being investigated over abusive comments recorded late on March 20th as they detained youth during protests against a contentious pension reform.

In a report to their supervisors, seen by AFP Friday, members of the Motorised Brigades for the Repression of Violent Action (BRAV-M) said fatigue was to blame.

One of them, Yann C., said that he and his team had been on patrol since 10am when the recording was made after 11pm.

Another, Benoit A., described “shifts of 14 hours, even 16 hours” during the demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, which includes increasing the retirement age from 62 to 64.

“Eating and drinking were complicated,” he wrote, claiming some officers took “medication” because they did not have time to go to the bathroom.

“We were physically and mentally exhausted,” he said.

READ ALSO: Clashes in Paris after latest pension protests

Wanted to ‘let off steam’ 

In the recording, shared by French media on March 24th, members of the police unit can be heard picking on a 23-year-old Chadian student, who has accused them of slapping him.

The policemen make sexually explicit, sexist and racist comments, while one member of the force tells a protester that they better watch out or next time they will have to take “a thing called an ambulance to go to hospital”.

In the internal report, Victor L. claimed to have focused on the Chadian student not due to his skin colour, but because of “his arrogance and provocations”.

Benoit A. says him mocking the foreigner for having “cried like a girl” was just a “clumsy” comment.

Pierre L. denied accusations he slapped him, claiming he simply “pushed him back via the face”.

But the audio features what sounds like a slap and him saying: “Want another one to set your jaw straight?”

Yanis A. claimed that, when he asked the Chadian if he arrived in France “hanging off a plane wing”, he was just trying to “let off steam”.

Theo R., who threatened him with an order to leave French territory, said he was merely trying to “inform him of judicial risks”.

‘Fatigue cannot exonerate’

Lawyer Arie Alimi, who is representing the Chadian student and another female protester, said he was not convinced by the policemen’s arguments.

“Fatigue cannot exonerate someone of criminal liability,” he said.

But, he added, “it could invoke the criminal responsibility of the police chief himself in view of the intensity of the operations he ordered.”

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said he was “extremely shocked by the comments”.

The policemen caught on tape have been taken off duty, but they have not been suspended, Paris police have said.

The inquiries are ongoing.

At least two other BRAV-M policemen are being investigated for alleged brutality, a source close to the case has said, asking not to be named.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Why do French police love to use tear gas so much?

Rights groups have accused French police of disproportionate use of force in the pension demonstrations since January, which have turned more violent since the government last month forced the retirement bill through parliament without a vote.

But the interior ministry insists it has been responding to “far-left” radicals intent on damaging public property.
 
Activists and left-wing lawmakers have called for the BRAV-M to be dissolved, but Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin this week rejected that request.
 
By Alexandre Hielard

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PROTESTS

Two dead and hundreds hurt in New Caledonia unrest: France

Two people have been killed and hundreds more injured, shops were looted and public buildings torched during a second night of rioting in New Caledonia, as anger over constitutional reforms from Paris boiled over.

Published: 15 May 2024 09:00 CEST
Two dead and hundreds hurt in New Caledonia unrest: France

What began as pro-independence demonstrations has spiralled into three days of the worst violence seen on the French Pacific archipelago since the 1980s.

Despite heavily armed security forces fanning out across the capital Noumea, and the ordering of a nighttime curfew, rioting continued overnight virtually unabated.

Hundreds of people including “around 100” police and gendarmes have been injured in the unrest, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in Paris.

One person had been shot dead overnight but authorities were yet to establish the circumstances that led to the incident, Darmanin said, adding that dozens of homes and businesses had been torched.

The office of the High Commissioner, France’s top representative in New Caledonia, later Wednesday reported a second death in the riots, without giving any details of the circumstances.

President Emmanual Macron cancelled a planned domestic trip and moved Wednesday’s regular cabinet meeting to hold a crisis meeting with key ministers on New Caledonia, his office said.

In Noumea and the commune of Paita there were reports of several exchanges of fire between civil defence groups and rioters.

Streets in the capital were pocked by the shells of burned-out cars and buildings, including a sports store and a large concrete climbing wall.

“Numerous arsons and pillaging of shops, infrastructure and public buildings – including primary and secondary schools – were carried out,” said the High Commission.

Security forces had managed to regain control of Noumea’s prison, which holds about 50 inmates, after an uprising and escape attempt by prisoners, it said in a statement.

Police have arrested more than 130 people since the riots broke out Monday night, with dozens placed in detention to face court hearings, the commission said.

A night-time curfew was extended, along with bans on gatherings, the carrying of weapons and the sale of alcohol.

La Tontouta International Airport remained closed to commercial flights.

As rioters took to the streets, France’s lower house of parliament 17,000 kilometres (10,600 miles) away voted in favour of a constitutional change bitterly opposed by indigenous Kanaks.

The reform – which must still be approved by a joint sitting of both houses of the French parliament – would give a vote to people who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years.

Pro-independence forces say it would dilute the share of the vote held by Kanaks, the Indigenous group that makes up about 41 percent of the population and the major force in the pro-independence movement.

Macron urged calm in a letter to the territory’s representatives, calling on them to “unambiguously condemn” the “disgraceful and unacceptable” violence.

Macron said French lawmakers would vote to definitively adopt the constitutional change by the end of June unless New Caledonia’s opposing sides agree on a new text that “takes into account the progress made and everyone’s aspirations”.

The French leader has been seeking to reassert his country’s importance in the Pacific region, where China and the United States are vying for influence.

Lying between Australia and Fiji, New Caledonia is one of several French territories spanning the globe from the Caribbean and Indian Ocean to the Pacific in the post-colonial era.

In the Noumea Accord of 1998, France vowed to gradually give more political power to the Pacific island territory of nearly 300,000 people.

As part of the agreement, New Caledonia has held three referendums over its ties with France, all rejecting independence.

But the independence movement retains support, particularly among the Indigenous Kanak people.

The Noumea Accord has also meant that New Caledonia’s voter lists have not been updated since 1998 – depriving island residents who arrived from mainland France or elsewhere since then of a vote in provincial polls.

A New Caledonia pro-independence leader, Daniel Goa, asked people to “go home”, and condemned the looting.

But “the unrest of the last 24 hours reveals the determination of our young people to no longer let France take control of them,” he added.

The main figure of the anti-independence camp, former minister Sonia Backes, denounced what she described as anti-white racism of demonstrators who burned down the house of her father, a man in his 70s who was evacuated by the security forces.

“If he was not attacked because he was my father, he was at least attacked because he was white,” she told France’s BFM TV.

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