MPs vote for tougher sentences against attackers of police or gendarmes

"When we attack a policeman, a gendarme, it is not just anyone that we attack, we attack the Republic".

These are the words of the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti while the deputies approved Wednesday, at first reading, a strengthening of the penalties for the perpetrators of violence committed against members of the police force.

The text creates a specific offense in the Penal Code for violence against police officers, gendarmes, soldiers within the framework of an internal operation, municipal police officers, prison officers, firefighters or customs officers, as well as their families. The rural rangers have been added to this list. The bill provides for seven years in prison and a 100,000 euros fine for violence resulting in total incapacity for work of more than eight days, five years and 75,000 euros for less or no incapacity. These penalties are increased in the event of aggravating circumstances.

The examination of this article was accompanied by lively exchanges between the latter and LR deputies, who called for minimum penalties, or heavier penalties in the event of the death or permanent infirmity of the victim.

Eric Ciotti has thus called for "minimum sentences against police attackers" in order to "sanctify the uniform of the Republic".

"Clientelism vis-à-vis police organizations"?

In return, Eric Dupond-Moretti denounced an “escalation” of the right on security issues which will intensify “the further we go towards the presidential election”.

The sanctions proposed by LR are either "unconstitutional" or accompanied by exemptions which make "a floor with holes", he quipped.

"We will see in 2022 what the French think", replied LR Julien Ravier with reference to the presidential election.

Republican MPs voted for the article, however.

For France Insubordinate, hostile to the text, Ugo Bernalicis accused the government of "patronage vis-à-vis police organizations".

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The deputies also adopted in the evening an article strengthening the sanctions for motorists refusing to obey an injunction to stop by a police officer.

There is in France "a refusal to comply every 17 minutes" alarmed the co-rapporteur Jean-Michel Mis (LREM).

The bill thus provides for doubling the penalty incurred, increased from one to two years' imprisonment and a fine from 7,500 to 15,000 euros.

Finally, the National Assembly approved measures intended to develop the civil reserve of the national police, in order to transform it into an operational reserve, on the model of that of the national gendarmerie, which has some 30,000 people against about 6,500 for the civil reserve of the police.