The macronie prefers not to mention the issues raised by the death of the teenager during a traffic check and the urban violence that followed. And this, despite demands for reform from the leftist opposition and institutions.
Reconstruction of public buildings, reinforcement of security, penal response, sanctions for the families of the rioters… For several hours, Tuesday July 4, Emmanuel Macron and mayors discussed a wide range of political responses after the death of Nahel in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) and the nights of urban violence that followed, at the end of June. But a theme was passed over in silence, remembers Philippe Rio, invited with around 200 city councilors to the Elysée. “There was nothing on police doctrine, such as racial profiling and the method of intervention. I have the impression that for the government, it is a non-subject”breathes the elected communist of Grigny (Essonne). “The president answered questions from mayors for five and a half hours, no words were filtered”defends with franceinfo the entourage of the Head of State, returning the ball to the city councilors, “who have not addressed [ces thèmes]“.
After the death of the 17-year-old teenager, shot by a police officer, the president used strong words, judging this death “inexplicable” And “inexcusable”, not without causing several police unions to react. But the Head of State then pointed to the responsibility of parents or the role of video games and social networks, bringing his “support” to the security forces mobilized during the nights of violence. On the other hand, he did not initiate any longer-term project on the subject of maintaining order. However, this crisis has revived debates on relations between the police and the population and put back on the table an old demand of the left since the movement of “yellow vests”: a change of doctrine and the creation of an independent body of police control to replace the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN).
“Now is not the time to open the debate”
“How should the IGPN be reformed, at the head of which a magistrate was for the first time appointed by Gérald Darmanin?” do we reply to the Ministry of the Interior, in reference to the arrival of Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre at the head of the police force in July 2022. “As for the rest, we will see once the crisis has passed. We are focused on restoring calm and the firmness necessary to achieve this”we sweep Place Beauvau. “A police officer has been indicted, not all the police officers have been indicted”declared the Minister of the Interior to the Assembly at the beginning of July, suggesting that this affair was not likely to lead to a questioning of the institution. “These events do not call for police reform”insists to franceinfo Matthieu Lefèvre, Renaissance deputy for Val-de-Marne.
For Anne Wuilleumier, political scientist at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Ministry of the Interior (IHEMI), this is a “usual reaction of the executive within the framework of the analysis of these questions, that is to say to identify individual actions and not to reduce them to actions having a collective scope. This is classic in the speeches on police control.”
In the majority, the choice not to seize this subject is assumed. “Now is not the time to open the debate on police reform, unless we want to end up with police officers who tell us ‘get out of our way'”is alarmed François Patriat, Renaissance senator of the Côte-d’Or.
“If Emmanuel Macron spoke of a reform of the police, it would be recovered and interpreted as a disavowal of the institution.”
François Patriat, Renaissance senatorat franceinfo
“As soon as the president spoke inexcusable act [pour qualifier la mort de Nahel], this formula has been the subject of a very large recovery”adds the Renaissance deputy of Gironde Florent Boudié, who advocates the “caution” on this inflammable subject.
In the Macronist ranks, in particular on the left wing side, some do not wish to ignore police issues, even if they comply with the collective instructions.
“Some colleagues wanted us to address this issue immediately. They wonder if we don’t have a problem with the police in France, and if we should take it up. But the time has not come. “
Florent Boudié, Renaissance MPat franceinfo
The criticisms are, for the time being, anonymously, as for this centrist deputy who testifies to having been checked in Paris a few months ago by police officers with “cowboys”before hastening to add: “VSis a training subject.”
The left calls for reform
The left opposition, it does not intend to temporize. LFI deputies and environmentalists took up the Nanterre affair to denounce the fatal shootings during refusal to complynumbering 13 in 2022 according to the IGPN, and 15 according to a count in the newspaper The world. LFI and environmental deputies have tabled a bill to repeal a text framing the use of their weapon by the police in different scenarios, including the refusal to comply. “The police officer indicted after Nahel’s death is rightly suspected of not having respected this legal framework, so why would we want to modify it?” estimates the cabinet of Gérald Darmanin. The text has little chance of succeeding, but the Renaissance deputy for Vienne and chairman of the law commission, Sacha Houlié, however announced on Wednesday July 12 that an assessment mission of this 2017 law would be proposed in September.
Accusations of racism in the police have also resurfaced at La France insoumise and ecologists, although no element of the investigation supports, at this stage, a racist motive in the intervention of the police officer who shot Nahel, French of North African origin. “The revolt has its roots in the systemic racism that led to Nahel’s death”thus tweetedafter the riots, the ecologist deputy Aurélien Taché.
Institutions have also reacted. Questioned on July 10 by The Parisianthe Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, called for an end to racial profiling, a practice that fuels “mistrust, distrust, frustration and a deleterious climate between the police and the population”. The NGO Amnesty International and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have called on France to tackle the “deep problems of racism among law enforcement”. Charges rejected en bloc by the Quai d’Orsay and the majority.
“We are inaudible”
After the Michel Zecler affair, a black music producer beaten up by the police in November 2020 in Paris, Emmanuel Macron had nevertheless declared, during an interview with Brut, that“today, when you have a skin color that is not white, you are much more controlled (…) We are identified as a factor of problems and it is unbearable. But the macronists do not wish to reopen this debate, especially since they are divided on this subject. “We are very reluctant and hostile to the idea of systemic racism in the police, and I am not sure that this is the question raised by the death of Nahel”assures Matthieu Lefèvre, holding the right wing of the party.
“If we refrain from talking about these subjects, we will never burst the abscess”regrets Ludovic Mendes, deputy of Moselle. “I sometimes had the feeling of being the victim of a form of discrimination, like some of my relatives, because different, racialized. It is a reality for certain individuals, in certain territories, who feel they are victims of a system”, continues the former socialist, now labeled Renaissance. The right wing and the left wing agree at least on one point: we have to wait until the start of the school year to possibly open these discussions.
“Today, it is very difficult to approach these subjects, because the debate is very conflictual, perfectly binary”, continues Florent Boudié. Between Republicans and the national rally on the one hand, who want strengthen criminal and security responses after the riots, and the “rebellious” and some environmentalists on the other, who are calling for police reform, the majority is trying to find “a position of equilibrium”, sums up the MoDem deputy from Finistère Erwan Balanant. Result, “we are inaudible to the extreme right and left” in this sequence, recognizes Ludovic Mendes.
The weight of public opinion and trade unions
In addition to the difficulty in bringing out a common doctrine on the police, the presidential camp also refers to public opinion. “The French want order, firmness, I read it in the polls and that’s also what they tell me in the constituency”, says Senator François Patriat. Place Beauvau, reference is also made to an opinion poll, the Ifop barometer published on July 3, according to which 57% of respondents have a positive opinion of the police. A figure that rises to 84% among supporters of the presidential party. “I think that there will be no notable development on the police on the part of this government, by political, electoral calculation, and also by philosophy”accuses the mayor of Grigny, Philippe Rio.
Renaissance elected officials also remember the fate of Christophe Castaner, who left the Ministry of the Interior in July 2020, in particular because of the revolt of the police unions against him. The ex-first cop of France had asked a month earlier “that a suspension be considered for each proven suspicion of a racist act or remark” from a policeman or a gendarme.
“There is a very high rate of unionization in the police administration, a tradition of ‘co-management’ between the ministry and the unions. The latter have privileged access to the minister and remain considered as central interlocutors for the definition program guidelines.
Anne Wuilleumier, doctor in political scienceat franceinfo
Put to the test of power, macronism has also changed its police doctrine, according to deputy Florent Boudié. “Initially, we approached the police question from the angle of de-escalation. It was moreover we who launched the daily security police, in line with the local policeunderlines the elected representative of the majority. But, since the ‘yellow vests’, our apprehension of the subject has been reversed, and centered on the maintenance of order in the face of rising violence.” The presidential camp intends to occupy this land soon. At the start of the school year, Emmanuel Macron wishes to open a construction site on the “continuum of security”, specifies his entourage to franceinfo. As for the deputies of the majority, they also plan to make proposals – in particular on the generalization of pedestrian cameras to equip the police – but not before the fall.