Police authorities stepped up to the plate on Tuesday to refute and denounce the "accusations of violence and racism" which their agents are subject to, while rallies denouncing "police violence" are announced in an international context marked by the American riots .
"I know the punishment that is yours in front of accusations of violence and racism, repeated endlessly by social networks and certain groups of activists," wrote the Paris police prefect, Didier Lallement in a message from support addressed to the police, according to information from Mediapart confirmed by the prefecture of police to AFP.
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“For the French citizens that we are, an accusation is not enough to make a truth. The police of the Paris agglomeration is neither violent, nor racist: they act within the framework of the right for the freedom of all " , he writes in this email addressed to the 27,500 police officers of the agglomeration. “There is no race in the police, no more than racialized or racist oppressors. There are civil servants who are committed to freedom, equality and fraternity and that every day! ” , he adds.
"If some of us fail in the requirement of impartiality and excellence which is ours, they will be sanctioned as they have been to date" , according to Didier Lallement. "But I will not accept that a few individual actions call into question the republican bulwark that we are against delinquency and those who dream of chaos and anarchy," warns the prefect of police.
Tuesday morning, the prefecture of police had denounced in a tweet "the systematic inadmissible questioning of the police intervening in difficult contexts with hostile crowd" .
Castaner welcomes police engagement
Interrogated Tuesday afternoon during questions to the government by the deputy LFI of Seine-Saint-Denis Sabine Rubin, the Minister of the Interior also defended the police "which protects in this country women and men from everything, including of racism ”. “There is a Republican police force that is engaged day and night for the safety of our citizens. We fight racism with force and we do it on all fronts whenever it is necessary, " insisted Christophe Castaner.
"In training it is a major subject , " said the minister, adding: "we are working with Dilcra (Interministerial Delegation to Combat Racism, Antisemitism and Anti-LGBT Hate) , we have associated Licra (International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism) ”.
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Also questioned on RTL, the director general of the national police (DGPN), Frédéric Veaux, also took issue with accusations of violence and racism targeting his troops. "No, the police in France are not racist," he said, refuting both the term "police violence" and an institutionalized practice of facial checks.
According to the DGPN, out of some 1,500 judicial investigations entrusted to the police in 2019, only around thirty would relate to acts of racism or discrimination which call, where appropriate, "the most severe sanctions".
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On the contrary, Mr. Veaux highlighted the “richness” of recruitments within the National Police and warned against the “analogies” with the situation in the United States shaken by riots after the death of a black American in the United States. hands of a white policeman in Minneapolis.
These statements come after a rally on Monday in Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis) to demand "justice for Gabriel", a 14-year-old boy seriously injured in the eye during a police arrest.
In addition, the call to demonstrate Tuesday at 19 hours of the committee "truth and justice for Adama (Traoré)", young black man of 24 years died after his arrest by the gendarmes, was prohibited by the prefecture of police.
At the end of May, the singer and actress Camélia Jordana had affirmed that "men and women who go to work every morning in the suburbs (..) are massacred for no other reason than their skin color". Words deemed "false and shameful" by Mr. Castaner.
