Paris (AFP)

Government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye is Monday at the heart of a new controversy after remarks about the nurse arrested on June 16 which are blamed on social networks by police but also part of the opposition.

Asked Sunday on France 3 about the arrest of this nurse who launched projectiles on the police, Sibeth Ndiaye first recalled that "justice must be exercised in the normal way, as for n ' no matter what citizen ", before specifying:" When I can't explain why we throw stones at the police, I don't see how it should be absolved ".

A little later in the interview, she added: "I obviously understand the emotion that aroused the image that we saw of his arrest. But at the same time, I could not explain to my children, for example, if it is normal, or not, to throw stones at the police. "

"These comments, made by government spokesman Sibeth Ndiaye, are unworthy of his duties," reacted the union of national police commissioners (SCPN), on Twitter.

Throwing stones at the police and gendarmes is an offense under the penal code, punishable by three years' imprisonment and a 45,000 euro fine.

Several voices immediately rose to the RN and to the right to protest and even to demand the resignation of the spokesperson.

"Seeing a member of the government thus putting the gravity of an attack on the police into perspective is worrying", was indignant the boss of the senators LR Bruno Retailleau, while the deputy LR Valérie Boyer denounced "ignoble words of Sibeth Ndiaye" .

"At this level of responsibility, these comments form a serious fault. Sibeth Ndiaye must resign. She dishonors the state. She dishonors France," demanded MEP Jean-Lin Lacapelle.

"Sibeth Ndiaye's comments were taken out of context. She was however very clear and denounced the launching of projectiles against the police", is annoyed in the entourage of the door speech.

"This controversy does not have place to be, also estimated the boss of the deputies LREM Gilles Le Gendre on Cnews. What it meant, in the context where one questions it to know whether or not it is necessary to show of leniency towards the nurse, she explains: I can't explain it in the sense that I don't know how to justify it to my children, in other words it's unjustifiable ".

More unexpectedly, LR MEP François-Xavier Bellamy also defended Ms. Ndiaye. "I think we would make him a bad trial based solely on this excerpt," he warned on Sud Radio, asking "to try to understand each other before systematically starting to denounce".

During the health crisis, Sibeth Ndiaye was repeatedly accused by the opposition of committing blunders, such as when she mentioned teachers who are not working.

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