2023-09-23 21:25:00
Some 31,300 people demonstrated throughout the country (including 9,000 in Paris), according to the Ministry of the Interior, and around 80,000 (including 15,000 in Paris), according to the CGT and LFI.
These two organizations called for mobilization alongside dozens of organizations, including collectives from working-class neighborhoods, NGOs (Attac, Dernier renovation, Friends of the Earth, etc.), parties like the NPA and EELV – but neither the PS, nor the PCF – as well as the FSU and Solidaires unions.
Incidents in Paris and a controversy
This car, stuck in traffic on Boulevard de Clichy, was attacked “with an iron bar”, indicated the Paris police headquarters.
One of the police officers then briefly got out of the vehicle with his gun in his hand to keep the demonstrators at bay, according to several videos posted on social networks, confirmed by a police source. This scene created controversy.
An “intervention by the BRAV”, named following this controversial unit of police officers on motorcycles, then “made it possible to stop the action and shelter” the police officers, added the prefecture.
“Among this (police) crew which included four personnel (…) we have three people who fortunately suffered minor injuries,” said police prefect Laurent Nuñez on BFMTV, adding that it was “trauma to the cervical injuries” for two of them, without specifying what had caused these injuries.
“We are currently working (…) to try to identify the perpetrators of this attack. We already have three people who are presumed to be involved in these facts who have been arrested,” added M .Nuñez.
In total, six people were arrested throughout France, said the Ministry of the Interior, according to a report communicated at 7:00 p.m.
“The Parisian ‘demonstration’ saw unacceptable violence once morest the police. We see where anti-police hatred leads,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin reacted on X (ex-Twitter).
Demonstrations ” once morest police violence” in Paris ©AFP or licensors Demonstrations ” once morest police violence” in Paris ©AFP or licensors Demonstrations ” once morest police violence” in Paris ©AFP or licensors Demonstrations ” once morest police violence” in Paris ©AFP or licensors
At the start of the demonstration, many families gathered in a “national coordination once morest police violence” demanded the truth for “Othmane”, “Alassane”, or “Mahamadou”.
“We come to fight for my brother, the man who killed him, an octogenarian former soldier, has been released,” says Hawa Cissé, 21, sister of Mahamadou Cissé, killed by a gunshot in December 2022 in Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes).
The gathered crowd chanted “Police everywhere, justice nowhere”, “No justice, no peace” and “Justice for Nahel”.
The death three months ago of this 17-year-old teenager, killed by a police officer during a road check in Nanterre, triggered a wave of riots throughout the country.
The demonstrators, of all ages, brandished signs proclaiming “Stop state violence”, “Neither forget nor pardon”, or even “The law kills”, with a statue representing justice with eyes crossed out in red, criticizing the article 435-1 of the internal security code, which expands the possibility for law enforcement to shoot in the event of refusal to comply.
Several LFI elected officials were present, like Mathilde Panot.
This demonstration “is certainly not what Mr. Darmanin says, that is to say an anti-police march, but a march in defense of the Republic”, affirmed the MP.
Gérald Darmanin sent a letter of support to the police and gendarmes on Friday and called on the prefects to issue a ban order if necessary and report messages “carrying insulting and outrageous slogans once morest the institutions of the Republic, the police and the gendarmerie likely to fall within the scope of the law.
“Grieving and Angry”
The Ministry of the Interior mobilized 30,000 police and gendarmes on Saturday throughout the territory, which is hosting the visit of Pope Francis to Marseille and thousands of visitors on the occasion of the Rugby World Cup.
In other cities, the organizers’ slogan ” once morest systemic racism, police violence and for public freedoms” brought together a few dozen to a few hundred people, without notable incident.
Between Villeurbanne and Lyon, 1,700 people, according to the prefecture, marched behind banners and signs on which one might read “In mourning and angry”, “Don’t touch our children”, in a generally calm procession, punctuated only by a handful of damage.
“For public freedoms”, “Down with the police state”, “I love the police who protect and not at all those who beat up”, might we read on signs in Saint-Etienne, where around 220 people demonstrated , according to police.
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