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TRUE OR FALSE. Self-defense, a notion monopolized by the far right?
TRUE OR FALSE. Self-defense, a notion monopolized by the far right?
(franceinfo)
What are the links between self-defense and the far right? Was this demand really made by the National Front, then the National Rally?
For almost 50 years, the far right has wanted to expand the scope of self-defense. In 1977, a legal case involved Roger Marchaudon, a brigadier convicted of having shot a man six times in the back, after an attempted hold-up in a post office. Committees to support the brigadier were then created, grouped within the “Legitime Defense” association, which then called for this principle to be relaxed for police officers.
The police officer’s response should then no longer be proportional to the attack suffered. The association was clearly supported by the far right at the time, and “claims to have 100,000 members”recalls Vanessa Codaccioni, professor of political science at the University of Paris 8 and author of Self-defense (CNRS Éditions, 2018). In 1983, the association participated in the organization of a demonstration on the initiative of a far-right police union, in which Jean-Marie Le Pen participated.
The National Front then appropriated the term self-defense, extended to ordinary citizens and their activists, as in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) after the murder of Ibrahim Ali, committed by three National Front poster pasters. Over the years, the far right will further extend the notion of self-defense for the police, even speaking of a presumption of self-defense, a proposal present in the program of the FN then the RN, since 2007. The two parties therefore support this demand since the 1970s, and have hardened it over the years.
Vanessa Codaccioni, Professor in the political science department at Paris 8 University, author of Self-defense (CNRS Editions, 2018)
French political encyclopedia, Emmanuel Ratier, chapter “Police and security”