L’Oeil du 20h collected the words of police officers who are victims of racism within the institution. A subject rarely discussed for fear of reprisals.
It is a taboo subject within the police: officers are sometimes subjected to racist comments and behavior from their own colleagues. For fear of being frowned upon, many would not dare to report. Some would even end up leaving the institution. L’Oeil du 20h collected the rare words of several of them.
During our investigation, we spoke with around ten police officers denouncing acts of racism. Many refused to testify on camera, for fear of reprisals. “If you speak, you are facing a steamroller”one of them assures us. “In the police, we don’t denounce our colleagues”adds another.
Those who finally agreed to speak did so on one condition: to remain completely anonymous.
This is the case of this former police officer, who recently left the institution. He had a career there for more than 20 years. He tells us that he suffered racism from the start, during his training: “Arriving at the police academy, a rather violent shock awaited me. As one of the only peacekeeper students of North African origin, during these practical arrest exercises, it was: “you are going to act as a thief, we are going to carry out an identity check on your person”. The third time, I told the trainers: I’m not a thief, now we have to stop with that. “
Subsequently, throughout his career, incidents of this type continued according to him.
One day, a department head offered me to pass the OPJ block, the judicial police officer block and in my absence a colleague from the group said: “he is passing the OPJ block to an Arab and not to me , the native Frenchman”.
A former police officerat the Eye of 8 p.m.
He adds another anecdote: “During the aperitif a few years ago, a colleague had bought halal ham. Well, another colleague found nothing better to do than take a slice of traditional ham and rub it against the slice of ham halal.”
This former police officer never made an official report so as not to be, he says, ostracized by his colleagues. But he ended up leaving the institution, disgusted by these behaviors: “I suffered enormously because I love this job so much. We embrace the values, we wear the uniform, we are ready to put our lives on the line, and a minority of colleagues consider us to be sub-police officers.”
Faced with similar actions, this other police officer took the plunge and decided to file a complaint. Of North African origin, she says she is in the process of leaving the institution after a long depression. In her complaint, she detailed comments made by some of her colleagues: “your last name is a good surname”, or : “you have a stupid name, but since you have a Mexican face, that’s ok”.
She describes frequent verbal slip-ups, which she ends up no longer putting up with: “One day in the car, I got a little angry, I explained that “bougnoule” didn’t suit me at all and they started laughing, and they said “if bougnoule doesn’t please you, we don’t have what to say bicot or melon.”
To keep proof of these criminally reprehensible comments, she decides, another day, to record the comments made by her colleagues with her phone.
She has just asked them to stop using racist terms, but they continue the discussion in front of her. Here’s what we hear in the recording, which we recovered:
When I say “bougnoule”, it’s the bastard Arabs, it basically means a dirty Arab. To sum things up, it’s going to be a mess. A city Arab.
A policemanrecorded by a colleague
A policewoman adds: “Me, I would say shitty grumps. You’re a shitty grumpy person, that’s it.”
The first policeman then assures that the term “bougnoule”, originally, “does notis not pejorative. He adds : “but given that all these ethnic groups feel victimized, it has become pejorative.”
After this recording, this police officer decided to make a report to the IGPN, the general inspectorate of the national police.
She says that all of her colleagues then turned against her and claims to have not been supported by her superiors. She tells : “From the moment I dared to speak, I was harassed. I changed police stations and was considered the snitch. The head of my new brigade told my colleagues not to talk to me. My tires were slashed.”
She concludes:
If we dare to speak, we can think about a reconversion.
A policewomanat the Eye of 8 p.m.
Following her report to the IGPN, she affirms that one of her colleagues was indeed sanctioned. His complaint for racial insults, however, was dismissed.
Is racism widespread in the police? Or are these cases isolated facts? The national police department tells us that it does not have consolidated figures on reports of racial discrimination. A report on this theme was, however, produced in 2021 by the scientific council of DILCRAH, the interministerial delegation for the fight against racism.
Here is what we can read there: “That there are racist police officers within the French police and that this results in behavior […] criminally reprehensible, there is no shadow of a doubt.”
This note was never made public by the authorities. We contacted two of its authors. They say they do not understand why this report was, in their opinion, ignored:
This report was buried. This surprised us. There should have been consequences, there weren’t.
Anna Zielinska, co-author of the reportat the Eye of 8 p.m.
DILCRAH ensures that this note was sent to the authorities concerned. Contacted twice, the Ministry of the Interior did not respond to us on this point.
In the ranks of the national police, few officers dare to denounce this behavior and break the silence. Stéphane Lemercier is captain. He is a former trade unionist. According to him, racist speech, although in the minority, would be uninhibited in certain brigades.
He explains : “I myself have witnessed this regularly, and I am not ashamed to say it, I have not always reacted by telling the person who made this type of comment that it was not correct. The difficulty is is that denouncing this type of practice to the hierarchy is not always very well received.”
Stéphane Lemercier adds:
It is a taboo question and there is denial at the level of the police hierarchy.
Stéphane Lemercier, police captainat the Eye of 8 p.m.
Comments firmly contested by the management of the national police, which affirms on the contrary that everything is done to collect the words of police officers who are victims of discrimination. Sonia Fibleuil, spokesperson for the national police, assures that racist remarks are unacceptable and contrary to the values of the institution.
There is no systemic racism in the national police, it is individual behavior which is heavily sanctioned.
Sonia Fibleuil, spokesperson for the national policeat the Eye of 8 p.m.
She adds : “The national police have planned several protocols, in particular the fact of carrying out an administrative or even judicial investigation, and then setting up platforms, in particular the signal-discri platform at the IGPN, the general inspection of the national police, to be able to denounce these facts.
To fight against racism, the management of the national police also insists on the mediation procedures put in place, and recalls the possibility for police officers to contact anti-discrimination representatives present in each department.