Jean-Luc Mélenchon at a press conference in Marseille, June 6, 2020. - AFP

The leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced Saturday the "unworthy" behavior of the police unions, the boss of the Republicans in the National Assembly, Damien Abad, worrying him about a "hatred of anti-cops", while demonstrations against police violence took place in several cities.

"The police unions behave in an unworthy manner," said the leader of France Insoumise at a press conference in Marseille. “We need republican police, and indeed there are republican police and fortunately for all of us. There are plenty of them at the police, but these people are suffering, ”added the member for Bouches-du-Rhône.

"It was not like that there is still a recent period", he continued, estimating that "the root of all that, it is a political power which is in the hand of the police unions which make what they want ". "And why are they doing it?" : because in the period "yellow vests", it is they who held at arm's length the survival of the regime. And since then, Mr. Castaner has been saying "yes" to everything they say and everything they do and is incapable of having authority, "he said. Jean-Luc Mélenchon also criticized the Keeper of the Seals "who does nothing" or who calls for "instructions of injustice and severity for the sentences which have been pronounced against the" yellow vests "".

"Anti-cop hatred that will cause a lot of security problems"

Damien Abad judged him on Europe 1 that there was "no systemic racism, in the sense of the organization by the police or by the gendarmerie of an institutionalized and organized racism. On the other hand, the police, as elsewhere in all the other trades, do not escape certain individuals who actually present a racist expression ”.

“What worries me is this fracture that there is in French society, with this double risk, this double pitfall: on the one hand, this anti-cop hatred which will cause a lot of problems in terms of security and of maintaining public order, and on the other, effectively excesses in what can sometimes be individual abuses on forms of racism which are completely unacceptable, "he continued.

Asked about the opening of an investigation by the Paris public prosecutor's office into racist messages attributed to the police on Facebook, he considered that "education first and then sanction". "If the facts are true", the police officers implicated will have to "explain themselves" before the disciplinary council "on a number of points," he added.

  • Police
  • The Republicans
  • France rebellious
  • Demonstration
  • Jean-Luc Mélenchon
  • George Floyd
  • Police violence
  • Society