Paris (AFP)

Jean Castex announced Monday evening a hardening of the penalties incurred by attackers of police or gendarmes after a meeting with representatives of the police unions in Matignon organized after the murder of a brigadier last week in Avignon.

In a statement, the Prime Minister thus specified that the security sentence for people sentenced to life imprisonment for a crime committed against a police officer or a gendarme would be increased to thirty years and that the possibilities of reduction of sentences would be strictly limited for the aggressors. members of the police.

Violence against the police will "henceforth be specific offenses more severely punished" and refusals to comply "punished more severely", he added without further details.

The Keeper of the Seals will take a circular asking "the prosecution for a strict firmness when the police are taken to task, including asking for systematic deferral and a rapid trial of the authors", also said the head of government.

This point refers in particular to ambush, which the police unions regretted that the prosecution did not seize.

The Prime Minister confirmed the setting up, "from July 1, 2021", of the observatory of the penal response, which "will relate mainly to the offenses committed against the internal security forces".

The reminder to the law will be repealed to be replaced by other forms of penal responses "such as community service and fixed fines".

The unions have cautiously greeted these announcements.

"There is the intention. We will see afterwards in the facts", estimated Patrice Ribeiro (Synergies Officers), for whom the confirmation of the creation of an observatory of the penal response is an "advance".

But all of them, like Fabien Vanhemelryck (Alliance) argued that increasing the penalties incurred did not mean that the penalties handed down would be.

"This will not change anything," said Mr. Vanhemelryck, who reiterated his preference for fixed and minimum sentences.

"We were told it was not constitutional," he said.

Grégory Joron (SGP Police Unit) took positive note of the will of the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti to publish a circular to the prosecution on the ambushes, of which the police officers complain of being victims on a daily basis.

"The listening was sincere. There is a real taking into account of the moment of the stake" and to "break the spiral" of violence, he judged.

All welcomed the repeal of the reminder to the law but were skeptical about the alternatives presented to them.

The unions have decided to maintain their action of May 19, but in the form of a rally in front of the National Assembly and no longer a march in Paris.

© 2021 AFP