Évry (AFP)

Edouard Philippe sought Tuesday to calm the controversy that swells over police violence by calling for "respect and trust" vis-à-vis the police, but also to "the requirement", in a context of "very large "emotion after the death of George Floyd in the United States, rekindling the controversy in France on the Adama Traoré affair.

The Prime Minister spent the morning in Evry (Essonne), a popular city south of Paris, former electoral stronghold of Manuel Valls, where he first met police at the police station before going to the premises of the association Citizen Generations 2, engaged on several fronts including relations between the police and the population.

He was notably accompanied by the Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner, sent the previous day to the front line by Emmanuel Macron, himself pressed by the opposition to pronounce on this sensitive subject, to announce measures intended to improve the ethics of the forces of the order.

Speaking for the first time on this subject since the start of anti-racism and police anti-violence demonstrations, Edouard Philippe acknowledged that the emotion was "very great, very legitimate, very shared" after the death of George Floyd. The video images show "the death of a man in unacceptable and, frankly, monstrous conditions," said the head of government.

Although legally prohibited, these demonstrations were tolerated because "the global emotion, which is healthy on this subject, goes beyond the legal rules which apply", estimated Mr. Castaner.

Marine Le Pen said on Azur TV "extremely concerned to see the way in which one shows complacency with movements which seek to import on the national territory of the racial conflicts" and which are "supported by the extreme left".

For the past week, thousands of people have taken to the streets to denounce police violence in France, in particular after the death of Adama Traoré, which occurred in 2016 during a controversial arrest by gendarmes.

Edouard Philippe stressed that the mission of the police and gendarmes, who "are on the front line" to "protect us all", was "frighteningly difficult". Because they are "confronted with tensions, with threats and risks".

"We owe them respect and trust", as does "the vast majority of French people", but "we also have a duty to demand from them", he added.

- "Acts" -

The Prime Minister thus recalled the need to respect the first sentence of the declaration of human rights: "men are born free and equal in law, free and equal in law".

"France, the national police, the gendarmerie, are not racist. But each time an act, a proven statement is racist, it is important that the whole of our country reacts," insisted Mr. Philippe in the afternoon in front of the deputies.

"Respect, confidence, requirement, it is the line which must prevail and it is the line on which, always, I will fight", he still hammered in the hemicycle.

Christophe Castaner advocated Monday a "zero tolerance" of racism in the police, the suspension of which will be "systematically considered for each proven suspicion" in the matter. In 2019, "around thirty judicial investigations were launched against the police on racist language," he said on BFMTV on Tuesday.

The minister also announced the abandonment of the controversial police method of "grabbing by the neck, called strangulation", a decision that left police unions "skeptical".

After his visit to the Evry police station, and after being questioned by elected officials from Essonne on the issue, Edouard Philippe acknowledged that certain police officers had expressed "their emotion and sometimes their incomprehension before a certain number of critics of which they are the object ".

Just before the Prime Minister's speech, Adama Traore's sister held a press conference in Paris to demand "acts of justice" over the death of her brother, calling for a demonstration again on Saturday. "We are not asking that discussions take place in a tea room at the Elysée Palace," said Assa Traoré, declining the idea of ​​a meeting with the Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet.

Like Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI), Christian Jacob (LR) or Jean-Christophe Lagarde (UDI), the European deputy of Europe Ecology The Greens (EELV) Yannick Jadot was surprised by the silence of Emmanuel Macron on the question of racism, accusing him of being in "denial of reality".

© 2020 AFP