Being a police officer "is more and more difficult", denounces a trade unionist

Linda Kebbab, national union delegate SGP-FO Unit -

• Linda Kebbab is a peacekeeper and national delegate of the SGP Police-FO Unit union, of which she has become the face on television sets.

• At 39, the trade unionist published her first book in which she looked back on the demonstrations of "yellow vests", during which 2,000 police officers were injured.

  She also tells about her childhood in Vaulx-en-Velin and her career in the police, an institution whose dysfunctions she denounces.

• After two police officers were seriously injured in Herblay then the attack on a police station in Champigny-sur-Marne, the police unions will be received this week at Place Beauvau and at the Elysée.

She appeared in the media during the year 2018. During the demonstrations of "yellow vests", Linda Kebbab did not stop defending her fellow police officers on the TV sets.

Police officers who were accused, on the one hand, of mutilating demonstrators, and, on the other, of letting them sack Paris without taking action.

National representative of the SGP Police-FO Unit union, her outspokenness is explosive, which is why she is regularly the object of threats and insults on social networks, in particular when she defeats the expression of "violence police officers ”.

Aged 39, she published

 with the Stock * editions.

A book in which the policewoman looks back on her childhood in Vaulx-en-Velin (Rhône), a town shaken by violent riots in 1990, and tells about her involvement in the police, an institution whose dysfunctions she denounces.

A few days after the assault on two police officers in Herblay and the attack on a police station in Champigny-sur-Marne, the SGP Police-FO unit union called on the police to gather, this Monday at noon, in front of the police stations.

What was the purpose of this action, on the eve of a meeting with the Minister of the Interior and a few days before an interview with Emmanuel Macron?

It was a way of expressing our astonishment, our anger.

It was also a reminder that security is the black spot of our country, and that the police are tired of being targeted.

This is the 50th commissariat mortar attack since the start of the year.

The authorities are content with big speeches but take no action.

We want to be able to work calmly, not to be the target of thugs, delinquents, who use us as punching bags.

Do you think it is getting harder to do this job?

Yes, because we are not supported from anywhere.

At the slightest mistake, we are threatened with an investigation by our hierarchy.

Besides that, part of public opinion increasingly defies the police.

As for justice, it discredits our word more and more… Doing this job is more and more difficult, it requires more and more courage.

You have to want to go on the public road, to engage your physical integrity, to miss taking blows to save others when you are treated as you are.

In the book, you denounce the dysfunctions in the police and point out in particular the “hypocrisy” of the hierarchy.

What do you mean ?

The hierarchy does not take enough care of the base, for the simple reason that it is not asked to do so.

Today, our chefs are noted on the figures they present: we must focus on quantity, not quality.

Unfortunately, the well-being of the workforce is not part of the scoring criteria.

Yet we are told at length that we must fight against suicides, against depression ... But nothing is implemented in this institution because as soon as we point to a problem, we ourselves become the problem.

💬 “We are not asking a minister to come and unclog the toilets, we are asking that the system that has been put in place be efficient and effective!

»@LindaKebbab reacts to the words of Gérald Darmanin ⬇️ # Cà You pic.twitter.com/rnA5bliJaK

- C to you (@ cavousf5) October 7, 2020

However, management reform should be taken, real consideration of the uneasiness of agents.

Commissioners should also be rated on the well-being of their staff rather than on recorded crime figures.

But our officials don't want it for political reasons.

We prefer to be able to present figures immediately in order to give a feeling of efficiency.

You talk at length about the demonstrations of the "yellow vests" which were often punctuated by violent events.

Was this period a turning point for the police?

Yes of course.

There are more than 2,000 police officers injured during this period.

There was also a lot of material damage, breakage, which also created a feeling of failure.

This left traces within the police.

Knowing every week that we are going to receive cobblestones and Molotov cocktails is exhausting.

The police feel they were used as a punching bag.

While part of the population demanded social dialogue, the authorities contented themselves with sending the police.

They took all this anger that had turned into violence.

It was also during this period that you appeared in the media to defend the police, which caused you to receive numerous threats.

How did you experience it?

Quite violently because I was not at all prepared for that, just as I was not for this media presence.

Looking back, I think that this hatred that I caught in the face was fueled by prejudices about the police, which are by nature violent and racist.

There are those who treat me as an ethnic foil, who completely question my capacities for expertise, my professional skills.

And there are those who preferred to destroy me rather than destroy their prejudices, who refuse to understand that the police are not a monolithic block but a population that has evolved just like the society it represents.

You yourself grew up in a neighborhood where some people “hated bacon”, as you write.

So how did you get the idea of ​​becoming a police officer from there?

I never had to deal with the police even if, when I was little, people explained to me that the police were absolute evil.

It was ultimately a chance meeting with a police officer on a mission that allowed me to deconstruct these prejudices.

It was about a young trainee lieutenant who - I learned later - intervened in a case of domestic violence.

It made me realize that the police were not what they had tried to make me believe in my childhood.

The police remain a very masculine profession.

Is it always complicated for a woman to exercise it?

This requires women to be more aggressive, stronger, more present, more available, less absent.

It's a challenge.

The police have been a profession for men that women have been able to exercise since the late 1970s. There are still chauvinists, as is the case in other professions.

However, I did not suffer from it.

My presence is eloquent.

I am the first woman to occupy the position I have in the union and I have never felt my femininity too much as an obstacle.

The hardest thing today, in the police, is not being a woman - at least it is less and less so.

When I was first posted to Créteil, I had to sleep three months in my car.

I suffered more from that than being a woman.

It is a profession in which it is difficult to be worthy.

Was it this episode that made you want to get involved in union life?

What made me want to get involved is especially realizing that I had managed to get out of it after going to bang my fist on the table.

I managed to put an end to this situation on my own when other colleagues could not.

This episode made me think that I had skills to bring to police unionism.

Often colleagues thank me for putting their suffering into words.

Yet, in your book, you are very hard on unions and "syndicracy".

Isn't that paradoxical?

No, unionism is a beautiful thing and having a union mandate is a strength.

Without it I wouldn't be able to express myself, and even having one I get hit a lot!

The trade union mission is very noble.

But some people don't live up to what is expected of them.

You are working on the launch of a "think tank" on security issues.

What can you tell us about it?

This adventure is beginning, there will be magistrates, gendarmes, soldiers, private security experts… This think tank will be cross-partisan, we want to compare ideas to create a common line on security issues.

We want to prove to the political world in general that we can come from different backgrounds and succeed in pooling ideas to become a real task force on internal security issues.

* "Guardian of peace and revolt", Stock editions, 288 pages, 19.50 euros

By the Web

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Miscellaneous

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