36 investigations opened at the IGPN and two at the IGGN since the first demonstrations against the pension reform

Gérald Darmanin responds. While accusations are increasing against police violence during demonstrations against pension reform or water reservoirs such as in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), the Minister of the Interior claims to have “never had a trembling hand for those who dishonor their own uniform”, in an interview with JDD, Sunday, April 2. Gérald Darmanin specifies in this interview that“there have been 36 judicial investigations by the General Inspectorate of the National Police [IGPN] and two from the National Gendarmerie [IGGN]” open since the beginning of the mobilization against the pension reform. He recalls that in 2021, 111 police officers and gendarmes were sanctioned, and 101 in 2020, for “disproportionate use of force”.

But he once again supports the police, emphasizing the violence of certain demonstrators: “At Sainte-Soline, as in certain wild demonstrations, it was not policing: it was guerrilla warfare.” “When violence, thugs and the ultra-left get involved, then it is the duty of law enforcement to say stop”, according to Gerald Darmanin. “I refuse to give in to the intellectual terrorism of the far left which consists in overturning values: the thugs would become the attacked and the police the aggressors”, he continues. In total, noted the Minister, “Since March 16, 1,093 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters have been injured”. There have been “2,579 arson attacks and 316 attacks on public buildings”.

“No more ZAD will settle in our country”

After the launch of the procedure for the dissolution of the movement “Les Uprisings of the Earth”, one of the organizers of the Sainte-Soline demonstration, Gérald Darmanin announced that he would do the same for Defco (Collective Defense), a movement in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) which “calls for an uprising”. “Politicians have lacked firmness in the face of the far left. Out of intellectual complacency or cowardice. But it’s over: no more ZAD will settle in our country. Neither in Sainte-Soline nor elsewhere. We will create ‘elsewhere in the Ministry of the Interior an anti-ZAD cell, with specialized lawyers’, announces, moreover, Gérald Darmanin. Asked about the ultra-left, he assured that the intelligence services had identified “in France 2,200 S files” belonging to this movement.

Asked about the petition calling for the dissolution of the BRAV-M (motorcycle police in Paris), which had collected more than 240,000 signatures on Saturday evening, Gérald Darmanin judged that it was “a politicized petition, relayed by rebellious France which hates the police”. As for the concerns expressed by the UN special rapporteur and the Council of Europe on the way in which force is used in France, the minister replied: “I hear the critics but I encourage their authors, rather than commenting on video extracts from New York or Brussels, to come to the field.”