Police violence in France: the beating of the producer in Paris, one case too many

The music producer, victim of police violence responds to the media, November 26, 2020. AP - Thibault Camus

Text by: Lucie Bouteloup

4 min

Four police officers were suspended before being heard this Friday by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), after the beating last Saturday evening, of a producer in his Parisian studio.

This new case arouses indignation everywhere, while cases of "police violence" seem to accumulate.

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Revealed Thursday by the Loopsider media, the case of the

by police officers Saturday, November 21 in Paris raises questions around the methods used by the police.

Especially since it erupts after a succession of controversies over these practices. 

It comes after

 Place de la République in Paris.

Videos shot during this operation show in particular a journalist being beaten by a policeman and a police superintendent tripping an exile.

According to the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin, this act should very soon owe him a summons to a disciplinary council for "disproportionate use of force".

It also comes after the publication, Tuesday, of a

on the arrest in 2017 of Théodore Luhaka.

During a police check, this 22-year-old young man from Aulnay-sous-Bois had received numerous punches but also a baton which resulted in permanent disability.

In her report, the Defender of Rights points to numerous breaches of police ethics on the part of the four officials.

It also calls for administrative sanctions to be taken against them.

From Babacar Gueye to the yellow vests

Unfortunately, the list of controversial police interventions does not end there.

In January 2020, Cédric Chouviat, a 42-year-old scooter delivery man, died two days after a stormy road check in Paris during which he was pinned to the ground with his helmet on his head.

In a video shot by a passer-by, he was heard saying "I 

 " several times.

In this case, three police officers are being prosecuted for “manslaughter”.

We also think of Adama Traoré, who died on July 19, 2016 in Persan (Paris region), nearly two hours after his arrest by gendarmes after a chase.

The first autopsies had revealed the trail of asphyxiation, without establishing with certainty the cause of death.

A new forensic expertise had exonerated the gendarmes in the spring of 2020, while a doctor mandated by the family estimated that the asphyxiation had been caused by a ventral plating.

The investigation is continuing.

Or Babacar Gueye, a young Senegalese without papers who, one evening in December 2015, had cut his chest with a knife before injuring a friend to finally apologize.

The police officers intervened had finally killed him with five revolver bullets and pleaded self-defense.

Relatives of the victim speak of a desperate act and point to the inconsistencies in the version of the police.  

But in addition to these cases, the methods of the police were also widely criticized during the demonstrations of the yellow vests during which eleven people died and nearly 2,000 injured.

Among them, according to the count kept by the independent journalist David Dufresne, 24 were knocked out and five had their hands torn off by de-encircling grenades.

A weakened bond of trust

So many cases, which have gradually weakened the bond of trust between French citizens and their police.

An institution moreover often undermined on social networks and that the law known as "global security" aims to protect, in particular with its article 24 which provides for regulating the dissemination of videos of the police. 

This point precisely adds to the anger of public opinion, of part of the political class, but also of all journalists who see it as an attack on freedom of the press. 

In his desire to ease tensions, Prime Minister Jean Castex proposed Thursday to have this very controversial article rewritten by an independent commission.

The proposal was strongly rejected by the President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand and by his colleague in the Senate Gérard Larcher, who even advised the government to bury his measure.

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