- The police have published their annual report for 2019 on Monday.
- While the past year has been marked by numerous demonstrations of "yellow vests", the IGPN has been charged with an unprecedented number of investigations. It also received a record number of reports via its website.
- The Minister of the Interior also indicated that the national police had sanctioned nearly 1,700 agents in 2019.
In 2019, the "yellow vests" mobilized a large number of Saturdays during demonstrations often interspersed with clashes with the police. Consequence: the police force of police was charged, last year, with a new number of investigations. It was entrusted with 1,460 judicial investigations by the prosecution, compared to 1,180 in 2018, an increase of a quarter. A significant part (66.2%) of these investigations concerns incidentally occurrences during “interventions or arrests within the framework of demonstrations”, indicates the general inspection of the national police (IGPN) in its report annual report published on Monday.
The Paris prosecutor's office notably requested this service "on all complaints relating to the use of force, regardless of the seriousness of the facts". A choice that can, "by a mass effect and congestion, jeopardize the capacity to process files within a reasonable time", alerts the police, implicitly responding to criticisms made by its detractors, concerning the the slowness of the investigations it carries out.
Administrative inquiries
At the request of the Minister of the Interior, the Director General of the Police or the Prefect of Police, the IGPN may also be entrusted with so-called "administrative", that is to say disciplinary, investigations. In 2019, 224 were opened, compared to 290 in 2018. The investigations conducted directly by the IGPN are those "of very great complexity", which concern "the most serious facts". The service noted, after its investigations, 630 breaches and proposed to the police hierarchy to pronounce 276 sanctions. "In 2019 alone, the police issued 1,678 sanctions against the police," said Christophe Castaner on Monday during a press conference.
The IGPN also counts, in 2019, 19 deaths during a police intervention, against 17 in 2018, and 117 injured against 169 the previous year. In detail, 53 injuries were caused "during a maintenance of order or urban violence" against 90 in 2018, she reports. Before clarifying that "the most serious were found in the eyes and face, especially after using the defense ball launcher (LBD), or a manual defense grenade (GMD), or in the hands in because of the blast effect of the instant tear gas canister (GLI). "
Increase in reports
"The violence against the police during the demonstrations has undoubtedly reached a new level and has resulted in numerous and firmer responses, and therefore injured people," she said. The weapon "the most damaging is undoubtedly the defense ball launcher (LBD)", involved in 32 cases, recognizes the IGPN. Very controversial, the LBD "is not harmful by nature", maintains the police, who want proof that only "one shot on 337 causes significant injury", that is to say causing a higher ITT at 9 days.
Another sign of an “over-demand from the IGPN” caused by the movement of yellow vests, its Internet platform recorded a record number of reports from citizens in 2019: 4,792, an increase of 22.3% compared to to 2018. Again, "this substantial increase is to be linked directly to the movement of yellow vests". "A peak of 567 reports, observed in January, corresponds to a period of strong social mobilization and violent confrontations between demonstrators and the police," said the annual report in particular.
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Police force responsible for an unprecedented number of investigations in 2019
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- Ministry of the Interior
- Yellow vests
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- Police violence
- IGPN