Their officers are easily recognizable: pairs of uniformed police officers on a motorcycle. The Brav-M (motorized brigades for the repression of violent action) are police units criticized for their heavy-handed methods of intervention. They have been at the heart of the news in recent days, recently implicated in several cases of police violence in the context of demonstrations against the pension reform.

The latest news incident: the revelation of an audio recording of a police intervention during a demonstration in Paris on March 20, which Le Monde and the online media Loopsider have obtained. It hears threats and intimidation by police against young demonstrators.

In a twenty-minute audio recording obtained by Loopsider, several Brav-M police officers threaten and intimidate seven young people arrested Monday night after a demonstration against the pension reform. Here is part of this edifying document. pic.twitter.com/dvWDZbGQSb

— Loopsider (@Loopsidernews) March 24, 2023

The prefect of police of Paris, Laurent Nuñez, announced Friday to have seized the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN). "Obviously these remarks are unacceptable (...), which ethically pose very serious problems," said the former secretary of state on France 5, adding that he was, "like everyone else, very shocked".

The Prefect of Police @NunezLaurent strongly condemns these ethically unacceptable remarks and refers the matter to the IGPN.#CàVous @France5tv @PoliceNationale pic.twitter.com/FLakqUBvyK

— Prefecture of Police (@prefpolice) March 24, 2023

"Intervene quickly"

These brigades were born in March 2019, in the midst of the Yellow Vests movement (started in November 2018). "The idea was to be able to intervene quickly, where the big companies do not pass or are too heavy with their kilos of equipment," police commander Patrick Lunel, who participated in their creation, told AFP.

The Brav-M now has six sections of 18 operators and as many bikers, or 92 crews, a figure destined to rise to 150 by the Paris Olympics, according to the commissioner who leads them, Stéphane Boscariol.

Brav-M wear biker attire and helmet, tactical vest, police marking, transmission radio and handgun (SIG-Sauer). Each officer is also equipped with a pedestrian camera, which he triggers individually and which is put back at the end of service. Its emblematic equipment remains the telescopic baton or sticks called "erasers", short models more practical on the motorcycle. Each officer is equipped with hand tear gas canisters and GENL de-encirclement grenades. Each section also includes four shield bearers and a LBD shooter, and has a "cougar" launcher for long-range grenades.

Comparison with the "Voltigeurs"

More mobile than CRS companies or mobile gendarmes, the Brav-M travel in convoy in Paris and its inner suburbs to intervene during demonstrations, on urban violence, degradation or dispersal actions but also in support of units in difficulty. They can make arrests, by looking "in the crowd" for people who are then handed over to judicial police officers.

In a video shot in immersion, the prefecture of police specifies that these shock units have for mission in particular to "block the departures of wild processions" and "contain the demonstrators". Barring imminent risk, the Brav-M intervene only on the orders of the command room, according to its supervision. Outside of demonstrations, they help police stations in the fight against urban violence or on road checks.

In the video of the prefecture, the agents of the Brav-M indicate that they do not want to be compared to the "Voltigeurs", the name of this motorized police brigade operational between 1969 and 1986. Created in the aftermath of the events of May-68, it was dissolved after the Malik Oussekine affair.

Two judicial investigations

Two judicial investigations were opened this week and entrusted to the IGPN following two complaints against Brav-M police officers. The first was filed by a woman who was hit with a baton on March 18 by a helmeted police officer when she appeared motionless, pinned against a wall, with other people in the Châtelet district, according to a video posted on social networks. The second concerns the punch punched by a police officer in the face of a protester on Monday night, captured by a video widely relayed on the Internet.

In a letter sent Wednesday to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, three deputies of La France insoumise (LFI) – Thomas Portes, Antoine Léaument and Ugo Bernalicis – asked for the "provisional dismantling of the Brav-M". A petition was also filed Thursday on the website of the National Assembly to demand the dismantling of these units.

Police prefect Laurent Nuñez, however, said Saturday on France Info that the dismantling of Brav-M is "obviously not on the agenda". "The behavior of a few individuals must not cast opprobrium on an entire unit which, in recent years, and particularly at this time, proves all its usefulness," insisted the prefect.

With AFP

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