The journalist who infiltrated the French police

"Hey.

I have heard the news.

I am so surprised. "

Valentin Gendrot received several text messages on the phone a few weeks ago from a former colleague, surely puzzled and disappointed by what he had just discovered: that his partner was not who he claimed to be during the months they worked together at the 19th district police station in Paris.

Gendrot, 32, was not a policeman, but an infiltrator.

An undercover journalist with one purpose: to reveal later, in a book, what is not seen from the outside, the irregular practices and the poor working conditions in the security forces.

“It is a parallel world.

And it is impossible to imagine what the police are when one has not been inside ”, says the author of the recently published

(Poli, in Spanish).

“It is a violent world, even in relations between the police.

And, obviously, in their relationship with the population.

When we patrolled by car or van, and we passed in front of a building where there was a group of young people, the comment of the policemen was:

.

And in the eyes of the

black, of Arab origin or migrants - you could see mistrust.

They looked at us badly.

There are two clans, two minorities: the police and this population.

They seem irreconcilable.

And at no time will a policeman take a step towards them, nor will they towards the police ”.

If we did not know that it is Valentin Gendrot, we could believe that the man who sits on this terrace in a popular neighborhood in the north of Paris is a plainclothes policeman who drinks his coffee before starting the working day, and not someone ready to be interviewed.

The journalist retains an air of

.

And, therefore, it is not difficult to imagine how in September 2017 he was able to enter the school without attracting attention to follow a course that in three months would allow him to act as a "security deputy" or a police officer under contract.

These agents, who in Paris charge an average of 1,320 euros per month net, occupy a lower rank than civil servants, but are authorized to carry weapons and wear uniforms.

Nor is it implausible that Gendrot, after a different assignment, managed to enter a police station in the 19th district of the capital without arousing suspicion.

"At first it was I who infiltrated the police," he explains.

“After three or four months, it was the police who infiltrated me.

I made my own words, codes and attitudes of my colleagues ”.

What he saw during the half year he was in District 19 he tells in

The brief training and how easy it is to become a police officer in the midst of a terrorist threat is surprising.

Also laziness.

When a woman approaches the police station and tells that her husband threatens her to die, she is ignored.

It is not a happy life: the police officers exchange messages in their WhatsApp groups with news of the suicides of agents.

Some are obsessed with

, the "bastards", a name they use to refer to blacks and Arabs.

"Violent and racist policemen are a minority," Gendrot repeated several times during the interview.

His colleagues appear camouflaged under false names, as well as some geographic locations.

Flic

does not reveal great news.

In recent years, complaints of police brutality have proliferated in France.

Using traditional methods, the press and NGOs have provided a wealth of information.

What is new is the method: the unusual infiltration.

One day, on patrol, Gendrot and his colleagues ask teenagers who listen to loud music in the street for explanations.

They are searched.

The tension rises.

A cop slaps a boy.

He takes it in the van.

It hits him again.

They put him in the dungeon.

The arrest record blames the boy.

Later this puts in a complaint for police violence.

Gendrot gives false testimony to cover up the assailant.

That immersive journalism — disguising yourself for information — can raise ethical issues, it is well known.

Is it lawful to deceive to reach the truth?

Does it not lead the undercover man down a slippery slope?

Where does the staging end and where does reality begin?

From Günter Wallraff, who posed as a Turkish immigrant in Germany, to Florence Aubenas, who worked as a cleaner to tell the experience of the precarious in France, there is a remarkable record.

The end justifies the means?

Forever?

The lie, Gendrot argues, is "collateral damage to tell what the general public cannot see."

He covered up an illegal action by law enforcement agencies in which a minor suffered abusive attacks.

He could have defended the minor.

He could have refused to bear false witness.

It could have ended the infiltration.

He preferred to continue.

"Covering up this error may allow me to report a thousand more", the book justifies itself during a moment of doubt.

On September 3, after

published

, the Ministry of Justice transferred the facts to the Public Prosecutor's Office and the General Inspectorate of the National Police, the so-called “police of the policemen”.

After all, Gendrot was then a policeman and his duty was to follow the law and enforce it, which he did not do.

He, who defines himself as a journalist, says he celebrates being able to give explanations to correct his testimony.

“I live it as a case of conscience.

For having covered up and for not having acted, "she admits." Sometimes I think of this teenager.

What will he think of the police?