"There has been a flaw in the interior ministry." Traffic lights broken, garbage bikes and scooters burned, broken windows ... This Wednesday morning the forecourt of the court of the 17th arrondissement of Paris wakes up with the aftermath of the violence that occurred the day before during a demonstration in support of the Traore family and against police violence, in a context of indignation after the death of George Floyd. An unacceptable situation for Geoffroy Boulard, mayor of this district of the capital, who denounces at the microphone of Europe 1 "a problem in the chain of command" of the police. Also invited from Europe 1, the secretary general of the SGP-FO police unit, Yves Lefebvre, believes that nothing more could be done.
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The "sacrifice" of the neighborhoods surrounding the demonstration
Calling that the justice "engages criminal responsibilities vis-à-vis the organizers of this prohibited event" on two counts, on the part of the authorities and by virtue of the sanitary measures limiting to 10 people gatherings, the mayor Geoffroy Boulard points "failure of the Paris police prefect and the Ministry of the Interior". Concretely, the ban on this gathering took place in the morning even for the evening, and the system put in place was not adapted to the situation, according to the councilor.
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In addition, the police "were concentrated on the defense of the court with mobile gendarmes very present around, but completely absent elsewhere. And this elsewhere, these are homes ... The choice was therefore made at the time of the dispersal of this demonstration to sacrifice the neighboring districts ", denounces the district mayor.
"Monsieur Boulard, stay in politics!"
"Monsieur Boulard, stay in politics!" Replied Yves Lefebvre, the secretary general of the SGP-FO police unit. "What do you want us to do more? You belong to a political party [The Republicans, ex-UMP, note] which has cut thousands of jobs in the police. And today we are exhausted!" he lets go.
An argument that the mayor does not hear: "I have been hearing this for years. I will meet with the prefect on Thursday and ask him what instructions he has given and why the double ban has not been respected."
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"There was nothing else we could do"
"If last night [Tuesday, note] the prefect or the Minister of the Interior had decided to make arrests upstream, we would cause a higher level of violence," replied the policeman, resuming his calm. "Indeed this gathering of 20,000 people had no place to be, but since elected officials, in this case two LREM deputies, called for this event prohibited by the prefect and by the health context, nothing can be done do something else. "
Indicating having consulted "experts in the management of law enforcement", Yves Lefebvre affirms that another tactic would have led to "physical confrontations". A situation that would have been all the more delicate to manage "that there was everything in this event", from middle school students to Black Blocs.
Despite the numerous material damage, the secretary general therefore prefers to retain "the only positive point of this event: the number of injured altogether limited" [around twenty injured among the CRS, note]. "If we had had more, we would go even faster towards a conflagration of the suburbs." A scenario that the police officer says he fears in the hours and days to come.