Despite Macron's support, new police demonstration in Paris

Screaming sirens, blue beacons lit, handcuffs on the ground ... Several hundred police demonstrated on Sunday, June 14 in Paris on the Trocadero esplanade, to protest the latest government announcements, a few hours after an address by Emmanuel Macron.

"We are not at all reassured by the speech tonight, on the contrary. We, what we want is concrete and above all we want the Minister of the Interior to backtrack" on the announcements from last Monday, explained to AFP a police officer who came with two teammates but who wishes to remain anonymous.

🔴New action in progress by the police on the Trocadéro, a few hours after Emmanuel Macron's speech. The police did not take off and multiply the strong actions for several days. #PoliciersenColere #policiers #Paris # macron20h #police #France pic.twitter.com/PT8J3zJPR1

"Being let go by your boss is still terrible! It feels like the street is in control and we feel completely abandoned," added another policewoman in uniform who also wished , remain anonymous. She says she is ready to come back every evening "if necessary".

Several police officers put their handcuffs on the ground in protest despite declarations a few hours earlier by the President of the Republic, who assured that the police and gendarmes "deserve the support of the public authorities and the recognition of the Nation".

"Without a republican order, there is neither security nor freedom," declared the President of the Republic, "this order is guaranteed by the police and gendarmes on our soil." "They are exposed to daily risks on our behalf," he said.

The Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, received Friday the police unions very reassembled since his announcements, in particular on the end of the use of the technique of arrest called "strangulation". Before unionists, he had also recognized "bullshit", "a blunder" of language when he announced Monday the suspension of any official in the event of "proven suspicion" of racism according to unionists.

The Alliance union requests to be received by the President of the Republic and awaits "strong acts", ensuring "to maintain the mobilizations".

Emmanuel Macron intractable facing the debunking of statues

During his speech, Emmanuel Macron also mentioned the protests against and police and anti-racist violence that have brought together thousands of people in France since the death of George Floyd, this black forties, asphyxiated on May 25 in Minneapolis by a white police officer.

"We will be intractable in the face of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination and new strong decisions will be made," he promised. But, he warned, "this noble fight is misguided when it turns into communitarianism, hateful or false rewriting of the past. This fight is unacceptable when it is taken over by the separatists".

The independence of France to live better requires our unity around the Republic. I see us dividing ourselves for everything and sometimes losing the sense of our History. Uniting around republican patriotism is a necessity. pic.twitter.com/Trb6CkvlF6

"I tell you very clearly this evening my dear compatriots, the Republic will not erase any trace or any name from its History. The Republic will not unbolt a statue", while many voices have been raised in recent days against the existence of statues or monuments linked to colonial history or the slave trade. 

Anti-racism protests have resulted in the debunking or degradation of several statues of controversial figures in some countries, such as in the United States where a statue of the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus was beheaded and another degraded, or as in Bristol, in the south of England, where the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was thrown into a harbor.

"We must rather lucidly look together at all of our History, all of our memories, our relationship to Africa in particular, in order to build a present and a possible future, from one side of the Mediterranean to the other with a desire for truth and in no case of revisiting or denying who we are, "he said.

With AFP

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