"We must ask ourselves the question of the legitimacy of the IGPN"

CRS during a rally organized Tuesday evening in Paris to denounce police violence -

• Last Saturday, a music producer was beaten up by police in the 17th arrondissement of Paris.

  The images, revealed by the Loopsider media outlet, shocked even the highest level of the state, and the agents concerned were suspended.

• This case arises a few days after the evacuation of migrants from Place de la République, during which the police were filmed committing violence.

• 20 Minutes

  interviewed Mathieu Zagrodzki, researcher associated with Cesdip and co-author of the book

  Live my life as a cop

  * with policewoman Juliette Alpha.

The images shocked even the highest level of the state.

A black man, Michel Zecler, beaten up by police officers for no reason, by agents who unceremoniously evacuate migrants from Place de la République in Paris ... Several cases filmed involving law enforcement officials have revived the debate over recent days. police behavior in France.

Is the police a racist institution?

More and more violent?

Are the young recruits sufficiently well trained?

To answer these questions,

interviewed Mathieu Zagrodzki, researcher associated with Cesdip and co-author of the book

* with policewoman Juliette Alpha.

Is there an increase in police violence in France?

To say that there is more than before is impossible, because we do not have data on the long term.

And even if we take the data from the IGPN (the police force) to assess that, we know that the number of complaints filed is not indicative of the number of police violence.

This changes depending on different factors, such as whether or not you are prompted to file a complaint.

In 2013, there was the implementation of the online reporting platform.

Obviously there have been more complaints since because it is easier to do.

Obviously, we are more concerned than before about police violence simply because there are images.

Whether for the affair of this beaten producer, the evacuation of the Place de la République, the demonstrations of "yellow vests" ... There is therefore greater visibility of the thing.

It is also due to the fact that part of the population, which was indifferent or little informed on this subject, is today much more sensitive to it since, there again, the “yellow vests”.

Until today, the issue of police violence was rather confined to working-class neighborhoods, and more marginally to football stadiums.

With the "yellow vests", there is a whole fringe of the population, without history and without criminal record, from the small middle class, who went to demonstrate and who took blows.

Are the authorities in denial regarding this issue?

So far, indeed, we have been rather in denial, in particular the current Minister of the Interior.

In July, he said he was suffocating when he heard the expression "police violence".

His posture, until then, was very corporatist, defending the institution and the troops for reasons which are understandable elsewhere: it is a profession in suffering, with accumulated overtime, record rates of suicide in 2019.

We were in a form of almost systematic denial.

But I have the impression that there is a kind of turning point, if only because Gérald Darmanin went to France 2 at 8 p.m. on Thursday evening to talk about the Michel Zecler affair and publicly announce the suspension. police officers involved.

This is something that we hadn't seen at all before, and that we could hardly imagine coming from him.

Are there many sanctions pronounced each year against police officers found to be at fault?

There were between 1,700 and 1,800 administrative sanctions pronounced in 2019, according to the latest IGPN report, for tens of thousands of reports.

On the other hand, we have less visibility on legal sanctions.

From a strictly empirical and intuitive point of view, from what we observe on the really significant cases of police violence, there are very rarely prison sentences pronounced.

Is the IGPN the right tool to investigate these questions?

This is a very complicated question, there are several points of view.

The most critical believe that the IGPN is in the hands of political power, that it is not independent, and that it is police officers who are investigating other police officers.

The agents, for their part, say that they are police officers who hate other police officers, that they are constantly questioned by the IGPN, that it is an extremely severe and repressive institution and little understanding in the 'regard to the police.

I think we have to ask ourselves the question of the legitimacy of the IGPN.

From the moment when it is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as an institution which is not independent, and which is under the boot of the public authorities, by a section of the population, it is a concern.

Because the day these people will be victims of violence by the police, they will say to themselves that it is not worth filing a plant at the IGPN.

There would be a need, both for questions of efficiency and of legitimacy, to move towards a model of independent administrative authority, which would bring together police officers, gendarmes and people from outside, lawyers, people from the sciences. social, which would bring another vision.

Do these cases reveal a problem of recruitment or training of the police?

To answer fully, it would be necessary to carry out cohort studies on the various promotions, to see their level of study, their grades, their profiles and their backgrounds.

Then there is pressure to recruit.

The more places we open, the less we are selective, it's mechanical.

This applies to all competitions.

There is also pressure for recruited officers to be deployed quickly to the field.

Between the time they take the competitive examination and the time they leave school and take up a job in the field, it's been a year and a half, two years.

However, there are sometimes people who were incorporated after ten months of school because there were glaring needs in the field.

The big problem is the fact that the youngest, the most inexperienced, find themselves on the most difficult terrain, in the Paris region most often, in areas where there are problems.

90 to 95% of post-school posts are in Ile-de-France, two-thirds in the inner suburbs, in the departments which depend on the police headquarters.

Are the police structurally racist, as some claim?

We cannot speak of individual cases when situations are repeated in the same institution, and in similar situations.

It cannot be the result of chance or of a few isolated elements.

In some police services, there is a somewhat instilled culture that translates into behavior.

Does the functioning of the French police induce discriminatory biases?

Yes, it is obvious, on the statistics, the controls, it is something that stands out very strongly.

The main tensions with the population remain with visible minorities.

Are the French police in their entirety racists?

No, clearly not.

I observed that there are cultures of police station, services, brigades, even crews which are extremely strong.

We have to think a bit in terms of sub-groups within the police.

I shot with Bacs [Anti-Crime Brigade] who had impeccable behavior, knowing how to handle dialogue, humor, authority and constraint when needed.

I have also known Bacs behaving in a terrible way.

I saw police stations in which all the brigades I met behaved in a terrible way.

And others or everyone behaved well.

What must be emphasized is the importance of local management, from the marshal to the captains - those who lead a patrol in the field.

It's like in all professions.

When a young policeman arrives in a police station, he is not very legitimate, has little experience, and he will look at the ways of doing things by his hierarchical superiors.

Which will then have an effect on his behavior, and overall on the rest of his career.

* "Live my life as a cop", by Juliette Alpha and Mathieu Zagrodzki, Hugo & Cie editions, 19.95 euros

Paris

The IGPN seized after the muscular evacuation of migrants from Place de la République in Paris, an investigation opened for "violence"

Miscellaneous

Producer beaten up in Paris: The police report harmed by video surveillance

• Society

• Paris

• IGPN

• Police violence

• Interview

• Police

• Gerald Darmanin