Five days after the death of Eric Masson, 5,000 people gathered this Sunday in front of the Avignon police station to pay tribute to this brigadier.
Last Wednesday, this thirty-something was shot dead while he was working on a well-known deal point in the city of the Popes.
Police officers from Avignon but also from other departments came to demand justice.
From our special correspondent in Avignon
On this sunny Sunday, the crowd is dense, compact, to the point of extending to the famous ramparts of the city of the Popes.
The faces are forbidden, the silence heavy.
Suddenly, a round of applause from the crowd.
On the forecourt of the Avignon police station, a few police officers walk past the carpet of wreaths of flowers, carrying the giant portrait of one of theirs at arm's length, before circling the young man's photograph in a moving circle.
A minute of silence, broken by a few stifled sobs from the police, then again freezes the crowd.
No less than 5,000 people responded this Sunday to the union's call for a final tribute to Eric Masson, who died on Wednesday in intervention in the prefecture of Vaucluse.
A much appreciated policeman
Called in the evening to a well-known drug trafficking point in the historic center of Avignon, this 36-year-old brigadier, father of two little girls, and himself the son of a police officer, was shot dead. The shooter and his accomplice are still at large. "He was a police officer unanimously appreciated," greets Bruno Bartocetti, deputy national secretary for the South zone of the SGP police union. He was a very discreet, very modest person, and the whole police family today is sad. It is very difficult for colleagues to see a loved one leave under such circumstances. There is a deep sense of injustice. When you're in the police, you lose more than a colleague. The police are a big family, and today we cry for a friend, a brother. "
Gaëtan traveled hundreds of kilometers this morning from the Alpes-Maritimes, where he has been a police officer for twenty-three years.
He didn't know the victim, but he didn't hesitate a second to come.
“Today, it is all the police officers who are affected, he breathes.
I remain deeply shocked.
We do the same job.
I too do checks like that every day.
I tell myself that it could have been me.
"And I am very angry," continues Jeanne, his wife, at his side.
What to do when you have a spouse who leaves in the morning and you are not sure whether he or she comes home in the evening?
Frankly, this is all very scary.
What happened here can happen in any city in France!
"
"Let him tremble, it won't be long"
"I joined the police in 1986, in the Paris region, and I retired four years ago," says Elisabeth, who came from the Gard.
I am distressed by what is happening.
It is an absolute tragedy, and there have been others recently, as in Rambouillet.
It starts to do a lot in a short time.
And we're here to say that we don't want that to happen anymore.
"
"Many colleagues did not come today to this tribute because they are afraid in 2021 to come to a police station, launches a colleague of Eric at the microphone.
The guy, to be nice, who did this to Eric still hasn't stopped.
But let him tremble, because it won't be long!
"
Sadness quickly gives way to anger.
“Behind all this, there is a growing feeling of impunity, gets carried away Fabien Vanhemelryck, general secretary of the Alliance police union.
We are there because the justice system is doing its job properly, and we are asking the legislator to act, in particular by putting in place incomprehensible penalties ”.
These grievances will be at the heart of a meeting with the Prime Minister on Monday, organized at the request of the police unions following this murder.
Jean Castex and Gérald Darmanin will then come to Avignon this Tuesday, to pay a national tribute to Eric Masson.
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