The Head of State, on Sunday, declared “rejecting the term police violence”, an expression which he has nevertheless used several times since the beginning of his political career.
The question is asked to him repeatedly, as if to measure the opinion of the Head of State on a highly sensitive subject. Is there, in the eyes of Emmanuel Macron, police violence committed in France by the police? In his last response, Sunday April 23, the President of the Republic swept aside the use of this expression installed in the public debate. “I reject (…) the term police violence. The police and the gendarmerie have a monopoly on what is called legitimate violence, they protect the citizen, oppose these people with unacceptable behavior”he defended to the readers of the Parisian (article reserved for subscribers).
>> What to remember from Emmanuel Macron’s statements in “Le Parisien”
From candidate, in 2016, to president re-elected in 2022, Emmanuel Macron varied his position on the subject of police violence and this expression, challenging it after having used it several times during particular episodes. Franceinfo returns to this evolution, both semantically and politically.
He is explicit about police violence as a candidate in 2017
Since the launch of his presidential adventure in 2016, Emmanuel Macron has varied his position on the subject and the use of the expression “police violence”. When he was a candidate for the Elysée Palace in 2017, he bluntly evoked this subject which has been rising within French society since the demonstrations against the Labor Law the previous year. “When there is police violence on the ground, we must give any clarification to this violence”, advances the candidate of En Marche! with Mediapart, in March 2017.
It is also his position on the set of the program “Quotidien”, at the same time, when he is asked about how to put an end to police violence. “To explain police violence, there is no good argument. There is no state authority in the neighborhoods if there is no authority in the state. that there is a blunder, there must be a response and a sanction (…) It is not possible, when there is police violence, that there is no sanction in the hierarchy policewoman”points out the candidate, defender of a “Republic of Responsibility”.
After 2017, an expression that he said had become “unacceptable in a state of law”
Having become President of the Republic in May 2017, Emmanuel Macron is changing his position on this question which he had not had to deal with when he was Minister of the Economy, from 2014 to 2016. He is directly confronted with this subject. after the outbreak of the “yellow vests” crisis in the fall of 2018. Very quickly, police and gendarmes were accused of committing violence against demonstrators and the executive united behind the police. “Do not talk about repression or police violence, these words are unacceptable in a state of law”sweeps the president in March 2019, saying he refuses the expression to describe the injuries “Unfortunately” suffered by “yellow vests”.
“After weeks and weeks, I see that there are no deaths to be deplored by the police.”
Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republicduring the “great national debate”, in March 2019
After a year of movement of “yellow vests” and new demonstrations against the pension reform, the death of the delivery man Cédric Chouviat, at the beginning of January 2020, pushes the Head of State to qualify his speech. According to him, there is urgency in the face of “behaviours, not acceptable, (which) have been either seen, or pointed out”because they can “achieve credibility and dignity” law enforcement. “There should be no complacency”he asserts, refusing to use the expression “police violence” again.
He partially changes his speech in 2020
At the end of 2020, marked by the murder of George Floyd, an African-American asphyxiated by white police officers in Minneapolis (Minnesota, United States), he operates a partial semantic inflection after the beating in France of a black music producer by members of law enforcement. “The images that we have all seen of Michel Zecler’s aggression are unacceptable. They shame us. France must never resort to violence or brutality, wherever it comes from. France must never allow hatred or racism to thrive“, he proclaims first on Facebook.
“I can tell you ‘There is police violence’ if it makes you happy that I say it, we’re not going to play ‘neither yes nor no’. I mean, that’s not the point”he then explains during a long interview with Brut, at the beginning of December 2020. “I have no problem saying there is police brutality, but I don’t like to give credence to a concept.” Why does he then avoid using this term which he did not object to three and a half years earlier? “Because things are changing and now it has become a slogan. This term is politicized”, criticizes the head of state.
“The black blocs, a part of the extreme left who want the dissolution of the state, have installed the idea or want to install the idea (…) that there is violence consubstantial with the police. That, it’s no. I’m against that. First, because it’s not true, it’s false, it’s a manipulation.
Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republicat Brut, in December 2020
For two and a half years, a period marked by clashes between police and demonstrators and several accusations made against the police, Emmanuel Macron has refused to use this expression again in public, thus going so far as to “to challenge” to readers of ParisianSunday.
However, in 2023, within the executive, some dissonant voices are heard. Thus, Pap Ndiaye, the Minister of National Education, estimated Friday on France Inter that there were “phenomena” of police violence, on which “General Inspectorate” of the national police (IGPN) “Bend over”. In 2020, at the time of the murder of George Floyd in the United States, the one who was still a historian had affirmed that it was necessary “also in France to assume this notion of police violence”. What Emmanuel Macron had refused to do.