REPORTAGE
As protests continue in the United States after the death of George Floyd, in France, thousands of people beat the pavement on Tuesday to denounce police violence at the initiative of relatives of Adama Traore, a young black man who died in 2016 at the time of his arrest. Across France, many voices are rising to denounce a societal phenomenon that is not limited to the United States. Europe 1 went to Évry (Essonne), in the city of the Pyramids.
>> READ ALSO - Police violence, racism: can we compare the French and American situations?
"Twenty or thirty times". Sitting at the foot of one of the city's stepped buildings, Gérémy, a young resident of the neighborhood, has lost the thread, and no longer knows how many police checks he has undergone. On the other hand, he remembers what he calls humiliation. "They take a pack of cigarettes, and to check that there are no drugs, they throw everything on the ground and say 'pick up'," he said. "When control goes like this, it doesn't make you want to be nice to them."
At his side, Lasko nods and tells of his fear of a blunder. "Once, I was on the Champs-Élysées, I was walking with my friends, and I am being checked. He takes out my credit card, and believes that I stole it. There, I start to get angry, and suddenly they start to surround me. I thought I was going to have a blunder. " And the young man concludes: "If I had been white, I would have been quiet". "They have to stop the burrs," insists Lasko again, according to whom "every time people go to see one, it will raise the tension".
Police unions worried about "anti-cop hatred" on the internet
For his part, Claude Carillo, delegate of the union Alliance of Essonne, ensures that these burrs, like the checks that go wrong, are extremely rare. To ease tensions, he targets hate "anti-cop" on the internet. "There are people on social networks who capture the images and take them out of context to make believe that there has been police violence," he explains.
Like this video shot after a motorcycle accident in the Hauts-de-Seine. By viewing it, Lasko and Gérémy are both convinced of the responsibility of the police.