The Minister of the Interior in support of the police and their boss. Gérald Darmanin spoke Thursday, July 27 for the first time since the beginning of the crisis that agitates the police, saying he understands the "anger" of the police, at a time when their protests, related to the incarceration of one of their own, slow down judicial activity.

Affirming that "less than 5% of police officers have taken sick leave or refused to go to work", Gérald Darmanin stressed, however, that "fatigue" and "anger" should not make them "forget the meaning" of their mission", "in the service of the population".

"I understand this emotion, I understand this anger, and I understand this sadness," he said as he left the police station in the nineteenth arrondissement of Paris, just before receiving the representatives of the unions Place Beauvau.

He was accompanied by the prefect of police of Paris Laurent Nuñez and the boss of the national police Frédéric Veaux, whose remarks had caused an outcry among magistrates and the political class, when he had estimated that "before a possible trial, a policeman has no place in prison".

"He is a great policeman, a great cop," said Gérald Darmanin of Frédéric Veaux, "I support him totally."

The police "need to have the support of their minister, which I came to repeat, and their hierarchical authorities," continued Gérald Darmanin, while a grumbling spreads in France after leaving a week ago from Marseille where an agent of the BAC (Anti-Crime Brigade) was incarcerated as part of an investigation for police violence.

Police activity down sharply in the 93

The protests, which manifest themselves mainly in code 562 – a minimum service provided in the units – and in sick leave, are difficult to quantify.

The use of code 562 and sick leave led to a sharp slowdown in activity in some of the largest courts in France this week, a decline to be weighed however with the relative lull that set in after last month's urban riots.

In Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the poorest and criminogenic departments in the country, the number of night police custody is around fifteen against 35 to 70 usually. "It's been a long time since we saw this in Seine-Saint-Denis," Bobigny prosecutor Eric Mathais told AFP.

In Marseille, the number of referrals is "low, even historically low" for the jurisdiction with "70-75% less activity," said a local judicial source. And in Paris, this volume has been halved at the duty section of the prosecutor's office, according to another judicial source.

Pre-trial detention in question

On Thursday evening, the unions came to tell the minister that the police were "in full crisis", according to Linda Kebbab, national secretary of the union Unité SGP Police. "Do not tell us: we understand you but you will have nothing," she warned, adding that it is "not a movement of mistrust vis-à-vis the minister".

In particular, his union called for the creation of a specific statute for police officers under investigation, excluding the pre-trial detention of an officer acting on mission.

But for another trade unionist, Anthony Caillé (CGT-Interior-Police), "having an exceptional justice for the police, it is not hearable, not acceptable", "it would be serious in a republic, a democracy".

The trigger for the movement came from Marseille with the incarceration of a BAC police officer, suspected of having beaten a 22-year-old man, with three other colleagues, on the night of July 1 to 2. These facts occurred during the riots that engulfed the country following the death of Nahel, killed on 27 June in Nanterre during a road check, by a police officer, also placed in pre-trial detention.

In the Marseille case, four police officers were indicted for violence in a group by a person holding public authority with the use or threat of a weapon resulting in an ITT (total incapacity for work) of more than eight days. As a result, one of them was incarcerated.

The victim, Hedi, had testified in La Provence to have been beaten, after being shot by LBD in the temple. In an interview with Konbini on Wednesday, he appears with "a part of the skull missing", says he has to walk with a helmet and not see with his left eye.

" READ ALSO Death of Nahel: accused of violence and racism, the police again under fire of criticism

The police officer's appeal against his pre-trial detention will be examined on 3 August by the investigating chamber in Aix-en-Provence.

"It will be a very important day. The problem for us is the placement in pre-trial detention," says David, a 43-year-old police officer in Nancy, who is in code 562, "symbol of protest".

With AFP

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