In the wake of the rejection of the censure motions on Monday, rallies and parades took place in several cities, and in particular in Paris. These demonstrations against the pension reform have sometimes been punctuated by violence.
While 287 arrests took place in France, including 234 in Paris, several videos broadcast on social networks implicate the police.
On one of them, in the Halles district, rue Rambuteau, we can see people being beaten with truncheons, in particular a woman. LFI deputy Antoine Léaument denounced on Twitter “images worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes”.
A video is particularly reacting. Filmed rue Saint-Antoine, between Bastille and Saint-Paul, it shows a man who is punched by a policeman. The person falls to the ground, knocked out as the official walks away. MP Raquel Garrido (LFI) asks the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to “stop the massacre”.
His colleague Thomas Portes expresses his “shame” of the police. He also denounces the “radio silence” of the minister.
Asked about BFM TV, the prefect of police of Paris, Laurent Nuñez, explains that he “asked for a report” in connection with this video. He nevertheless defends his troops, explaining that the person struck was damaging a newsstand and that she opposed his arrest. He says that only the end of the video is visible and he “needs to contextualize to know if it’s proportionate or not”.
Putting a punch, a gesture “not quite suitable”
This is the only fact since last Thursday for which Laurent Nuñez has seized the IGPN (General Inspectorate of the National Police). He recognizes that, legally, “it’s not quite suitable” to throw a punch.
More generally, the prefect also said that “there is no unjustified arrest”. “The forces of order only intervene when there are abuses. He also defended the use of the trap technique during multiple arrests, what he calls the “judicial trap”. In public order, in the face of sometimes “so serious” disturbances, he recalls that this practice remains authorized as long as it is not too “liberticidal”, that is to say as long as it does not last “too long “.
Two other videos are also reacting. The first, near the Samaritaine, shows a group of police facing some demonstrators. A clash takes place with journalists, including Rémy Buisine, from Brut. One of the police officers seems difficult to control, including by his colleagues. He throws threats and uses his shield with force. One person asks if “his boss can regulate him”.
The second video, near Bastille, rue de Bercy, arouses reactions due to comments made by a police officer. This one makes a shot of LBD and, we hear him in the process, declare: “hey, pick up your balls motherfucker”.
In a communiqué, the Syndicate of the magistrature deplores the way in which the demonstrations of the last days are managed. “Hundreds of arrests and custody measures have been decided since last Thursday. The vast majority of these measures have not received any legal action (in Paris, after the demonstration on Thursday at Place de la Concorde, out of 292 demonstrators in police custody, only 9 gave rise to criminal proceedings)”, he writes.
“We have seen these scenes unworthy of a democracy: police carrying out unlawful violence against demonstrators and street medics (Editor’s note: people providing care in the demonstrations), collective arrests of demonstrators ordered to sit down by the dozen on the ground, hands on their heads, journalists doing their job threatened or brutalized, ”denounces the union. It also implicates the police “summoned to repress the demonstrations which are organized in many cities to express social anger”.
“While our colleagues have been facing extreme violence for several days, some are taking advantage of it to sow hatred”, reacted the police union Alliance, assuring that the police “know the difference between demonstrating and riots violent attacks with mortars, cobblestones and incendiary devices”.
The Paris police headquarters communicates this Tuesday morning on its satisfaction. She expressed the “strong thanks of the prefect of police Laurent Nuñez for the work of the police”.