Nine police officers from the Nancy night crime brigade (BAC) will be tried this Thursday and Friday in Nancy for moral harassment and racist insults towards four of their former colleagues, including their boss.
Read alsoNancy: police officers tried for moral harassment and racist insults towards colleagues
These facts were revealed by an investigation by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) opened in October 2018. This investigation brought to light repeated "
acts of harassment
", committed between 2015 and 2018, which led to "
isolation
” of several police officers from this Nancy service, indicates the report dating from December 2019 that AFP was able to consult.
Insulting phrases with racist overtones
According to this damning document, the four complainants all “
referred to comments or described repeated behavior aimed at excluding them
” from the service.
Attitudes which have also led to "
a deterioration in their working conditions
" and above all "
an alteration in their physical and moral health
".
One of the complainants, of North African origin, also filed a complaint for non-public racist insults, in addition to moral harassment.
A few months after his arrival in April 2017, other members of the unit had created a discussion group on Messenger and exchanged "
insulting phrases with a racist connotation
", calling him in particular "
bicot
" or "
bougnoule
", notes The report.
Charges swept away by the defendants, one of them even going so far as to affirm before the IGPN that “
bicot
” is a Portuguese word.
A policeman alerts his superiors
It was finally a policeman from the BAC at night who, witnessing the actions of his teammates, decided to speak to his superiors about it, leading to the opening of the police investigation in 2018. Being part of the Messenger discussion group, he had recorded the exchanges, which his department head had then compiled.
According to the IGPN, the testimony of this policeman "
corroborated all the accusations made by the complainants
".
He thus explained that the goal of the defendants was to push the victims “
towards the exit, by exerting psychological pressure on them, so that they leave on their own
” from the service.
“
When you are harassed in this way, it is good to see that justice is present, we hope that there will be an awareness
,” notes Me Frédéric Berna, lawyer for the four plaintiffs.
His clients, still in the police, have all left since the BAC at night.
Defense attorneys declined to make a statement before the trial.
The nine defendants went to the disciplinary council last October: it had proposed four radiations, one demotion and four temporary exclusions.
The sanctions must be notified soon, according to a source familiar with the matter.
A tenth policeman from the night BAC is meanwhile sent back to court solely for "
complicity in breaching the secrecy of correspondence
".