INTERVIEW
More than 20,000 people gathered on Tuesday to denounce the police violence at the initiative of the relatives of Adama Traoré, a young black man who died in 2016 during his arrest. This rally, prohibited by the prefecture, took place in a particular context: that of the demonstrations organized in the United States after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American asphyxiated by a white police officer last week.
"Today, when we fight for Georges Floyd, we fight for Adama Traoré", launched Assa Traoré, the elder sister of Adama Traoré. Should we therefore compare the French and American situations? At the microphone of Europe 1, Jean-François Amadieu, sociologist at Paris 1 university and specialist in discrimination, believes that "there is not the same background of generalized racism" in the French police, even if " these behaviors may exist. "
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"The situations are not exactly comparable," said the specialist, recalling that "the death rate due to police intervention is much higher in the United States than in France". According to Jean-François Amadieu, "scientifically, in the United States, it has been very well established that there was racist behavior during the arrests. This is a factor which plays a lot and explains why the mortality rate for blacks is much higher than in France ".
Racist police behavior in France "may exist"
In France, he believes, cases exist, but "it is difficult to quantify them". And the approach of the French police "is less racial than related to neighborhoods, youth, the look of young people," he said. "This has been established in several studies, carried out in particular at the Gare du Nord and in Châtelet", in Paris. Compared to the United States, "there is not the same background of generalized racism", insists Jean-François Amadieu, while specifying that "these behaviors can exist".
For the sociologist, another problem exists in France, "that of the slowness of justice, and the fact that the public prosecutor's offices and the General Inspectorate of the national police are not very diligent". At the time of the "yellow vests" crisis, for example, "there were a lot of files in which we cannot say that we were very quick when there were dislocations and disproportionate use of force ". This situation "weakens the position of the police," concludes the sociologist.