The outcry after the police beating of a black man causes tension in the French Government

Scene from the recording of three policemen beating the music producer Michel Zecler in his studio- / MICHEL ZECLER / GS GROUP / AFP

This time, the storm is blowing everywhere, also from within, and it doesn't seem to abate.

The broadcast of a recording of police violently beating music producer Michel Zecler, a black man, in his own studio in Paris while repeatedly hurling racist insults at him has sparked a widespread outcry in France.

The outrage has even reached the top of the Government of Emmanuel Macron and is forcing an Executive who until now resisted criticism and pressure to withdraw a controversial security law that seeks to limit the dissemination of images of security agents. law enforcement.

His decision to review the regulations has, however, opened another political storm.

Macron had not commented to date on the Global Security bill and its most controversial article, the 24th, which provides penalties of up to one year in prison and a 45,000 euro fine for disseminating images of police or gendarmes with the intention to harm them.

The regulations were approved on Tuesday in the first reading in the National Assembly thanks to the macronist majority of the hemicycle, despite numerous protests and criticisms from left-wing politicians, journalists, NGOs and even government human rights organizations who demanded their withdrawal and, also, despite the fact that only 24 hours before another scandal had broken out after the dissemination of images of the violent dismantling of an immigrant camp in the center of Paris.

The video of Zecler's brutal beating, however, appears to have caused a turning point.

The president feels "very dismayed" by the last episode, said this Friday the Elysee in a rare comment on the "feeling" of the president.

According to several French media, Macron was also the one who forced his Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, promoter of the disputed law, to appear on the main newscast of the night on Thursday night to condemn without ambiguity the actions of the agents and explain live that the controversial article of the law will be "rewritten", as the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, had announced shortly before, that he is going to create an "independent commission" for it.

Although the official leak of Macron's sentiments is an unusual gesture, it is not, in the current context, surprising.

This episode has generated a general consternation rarely seen, despite the fact that France has lived in recent months, especially during the summer, as a result of the American demonstrations after the death of George Floyd, strong protests over several national scandals of alleged police violence and racist attitudes of some officers.

The sentences for the beating of Zecler by the police officers - who have been suspended since Thursday and who this Friday declared before the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), the "police police", under preventive detention - have multiplied in the last hours and they arrive not only from the political benches.

"Nausea", the newspaper

titled

its cover on Friday, in which it shows the bloody and swollen face from the blows of the music producer after the police beating.

Even elite athletes - and highly respected public figures - such as footballers Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé have expressed their rejection, in two comments that are also unusual in two athletes who do not usually express political opinions.

Parliamentary storm

But the government's reaction and its decision to "rewrite" a regulation that had already undergone amendments before its first approval - it still has to go through the Senate and then return to the National Assembly - has not appeased national anger.

And he risks aggravating the storm in which the Executive has gotten himself, since on top of it it has caused another wave of indignation, this time from the parliamentarians who feel "humiliated" by a decision that seems to not do their job.

The president of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, a former right-hand man of the president and an early macronist, sent a letter to Castex on Friday criticizing the creation of the commission to review the law.

"To entrust a foreign body with such a mission would constitute an attack on the missions of Parliament, the only one that writes and votes the laws," he warns in his letter, reproduced by several French media.

His Senate counterpart, the conservative Gérald Larcher, has also said in a similar way, who has also asked the prime minister to "renounce his decision to appoint a commission" because "it is in Parliament, in the framework of a democratic and public debate , where laws are edited or rewritten.

This role does not correspond to a commission or committee of experts that does not have any democratic legitimacy ”.

Congressmen from both the left and conservatives have joined in the complaints of what they interpret as an attempt to "short-circuit" the legislature.

"Dangerous", warned the spokesman for the Socialist deputies, Boris Vallaud.

"If the prime minister wants to dissolve the Assembly, let him do so respecting the forms," ​​he challenged.