Released under judicial supervision, four CRS were indicted for willful violence by a person holding public authority on Tuesday. Indictments that took place after their police custody in the investigation into violence at a Burger King restaurant in December 2018 in Paris, on the sidelines of a demonstration of "yellow vests", has he we learned from a judicial source.
The four CRS placed under judicial control
Two of them are also prosecuted for willful violence with incapacity for work of less than eight days per person holding public authority in a meeting and with a weapon. Their judicial control prohibits them from coming into contact with one another, from exercising the function of police on the public highway and from possessing or carrying a weapon.
On December 1, 2018, during act 3 of the "yellow vests", around thirty demonstrators and a few journalists had found refuge in a Burger King near the Arc de Triomphe, after a day of mobilization marked by numerous acts of violence. A dozen CRS entered the fast food restaurant and severely beat several demonstrators, some lying on the ground, using batons - a scene filmed by several journalists.
An emblematic case of the excesses of policing against the yellow vests
This case, considered emblematic of the excesses of maintaining order in the face of "yellow vests", had led to the opening of an investigation, entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN). An investigating judge was then appointed in May 2019. In his preliminary investigation report of May 2019, the IGPN acknowledged that violence "which did not seem justified" had been committed during this intervention led by the first section of the 43rd republican security company of Chalon-sur-Saône.
The IGPN cited in particular the case of Natan A., who had received 27 baton blows, carried out by six police officers, before being able to leave the restaurant. But the police had assured at the time that they had not been able to identify all of the officials involved, while on several videos given to investigators and posted online by certain media, we could make out the faces of several police officers. In its report, the IGPN had insisted on the general "context" of the demonstration, referring to an "unprecedented insurgent context of chaos".