French police are going through the “worst moral crisis in modern history”, according to one of the country’s leading law enforcement experts, following a string of violent incidents in which officers have been accused of misconduct, brutality and racism.
Decades of refusal by successive French governments to introduce UK-style independent oversight and systemic reform have brought its police to a perilous breaking point with swathes of an already sceptical population, according to eminent criminologist Sebastien Roché at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CRNS.
The French have long felt ambivalent about their force, which has come a long way since the dark days of 1961 in which officers under the command of police chief Maurice Papon, later convicted of crimes against humanity, massacred an estimated 200 Algerian protesters. “You’ll be covered,” he notoriously told his men.
Hailed as heroes in the wake of terror attacks, they have been equally vilified as heavy-handed and trigger-happy in recent mass demonstrations, notably during the “yellow vests” revolt where intensive use of stun grenades and rubber bullets maimed dozens.
However, in the past two weeks, the image of the French force has taken a battering of rare intensity, bringing to the fore long-held accusations of discrimination towards minorities, violence and a sense of impunity.
Storm clouds were already brewing over a new security bill debated this week, which included a controversial clause that bans the release of footage of identifiable police officers with “manifest intent to harm”.
Gérald Darminin, France’s tough-talking interior minister dubbed the country’s “top cop”, said it would help “protect those who protect us” but journalists warned it could harm press freedom and prevent the documentation of abuse.
As if on cue, police were filmed this week kicking and beating migrants whom had erected tents in Paris’ Place de la République to protest their lack of housing. A chief superintendent was caught on camera tripping one Afghan as he fled down a side street.
Then in a coup de grace for the force, four officers were filmed beating and racially insulting Michel Zecler, a black music producer for over ten minutes in his studio in central Paris.
Viewed 14 million online views, the footage prompted an outcry from a raft of public figures, including football World Cup winners Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann, who said: “I’ve got France ache.”
“This ultra-violent video is the reason why we will continue filming the police,” said actor-director Mathieu Kassovitz whose prescient suburban film La Haine (Hatred) laid bare police violence in 1995.
With the four suspended and held for questioning at the National Police Inspectorate General (IGPN), France’s “police of police”, prosecutors opened an investigation into “violence by a person in authority and false testimony”.
“Even if the images are shocking, this mustn’t become a pretext to denigrate an entire police institution,” said Fabien Vanhemelrhyk of the main Alliance police union.
But sensing snowballing public outrage, President Emmanuel Macron stepped in on Friday night to condemn the images of an "unacceptable attack” which “shame us”.
In a long Facebook missive, he asked the government to come up with proposals to "fight against discrimination”.
Yet experts expressed scepticism this would lead to any real change.
“French police are going through the worst moral crisis in modern history,” said Mr Roché, also Europe editor of the journal Policing and Society.
"For the past decade, numerous studies have shown that it is wracked by discrimination and racism. Yet successive governments and police unions continue to peddle the idea that there are just a few rotten apples. The problem is systemic,” he said.
Britain’s police had tackled the issues after to the 1997 MacPherson report in the wake of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, which concluded that the investigation into the killing had been “marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership”.
“France has known the same crises but has not questioned itself,” said Mr Roché. “After the 2005 suburban riots, the worst in European history. There was not even a commission of parliamentary inquiry, no national debate, no turning point."
A police white paper out this month all-but glossed over how to improve relations with the population. Police training is woefully short, just eight months, he added.
That has contributed to France coming third from bottom in a major European league table on whether police discriminated against race or minorities. They were third-worst in terms for being under "undue political influence". They came last in a recent EU poll on satisfaction levels of those who underwent a police check.
“We are also still paying the price for then interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy scrapping neighbourhood policing in 2003,” said Jean-Marc Berlière, a historian, adding that it had sounded the death knell of “policing by consent”.
The current interior minister, Mr Darminin, is a former Sarkozy protégé and has adopted similar jaw-jutting rhetoric. Analysts say that has suited Mr Macron in his bid to woo hardline conservatives in his likely rematch against far-Right leader Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential elections.
But in an editorial, Le Monde warned Mr Darminin’s inflammatory stance “risks dragging the country into a terribly dangerous spiral, aggravated by multiple tensions linked to (Covid) lockdown”.
The prime minister’s attempts to placate public opinion by ordering a parliamentary commission to totally re-write the controversial security clause failed to stop dozens of protests on Saturday against the law.
Police fired tear gas and stun grenades during a during a march in Paris after masked protesters launched fireworks at their lines, put up barricades and threw stones. The majority of the thousands of protesters marched peacefully, but several small groups clashed with police.
Two cars, a motorcycle and building materials were set on fire, which generated clouds of black smoke visible from miles away. Thousands of people also marched in Lille, Rennes, Strasbourg and other cities.
A central problem, said Christian Mouhanna, a sociologist and author Police Against Citizens?, was the lack of “proper counterweights” to the police, adding that the IPGN, its internal inspection unit, was toothless compared to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Its boss is appointed by the interior minister himself. “And we have nothing like the Independent Office of Police conduct,” added Mr Roché.
That contributed to a “clan-like mentality and a law of silence,” said Mr Mouhanna.
While only advisory, the country’s rights ombudsman is gradually gaining prominence, however.
This week, it released a damning report on Théodore Luhaka, a 22-year-old left disabled for life after being allegedly sodomised with a police baton in a Paris suburb in 2017. Le Monde said the report was an “implacable demonstration of a string of police failures”.
Incredibly, those concerned avoided significant disciplinary action but this week, judges announced that three will stand criminal trial - a rare occurrence.
Experts agreed that the fact that police relations were becoming a “societal issue” was refreshingly new.
“But if the government doesn’t open a debate in parliament on these questions, it will end up being done in the street,” warned Mr Roché.
