civil servants parade throughout France in support of their colleague indicted

In several cities in France, police officers expressed their anger on Monday, May 2. They came to defend one of their colleague, indicted for intentional homicide. According to them, he must benefit from the “presumption of self-defence”. “It will be up to my colleague to demonstrate that self-defense was there, whereas it should be up to the civil party and the magistrate to demonstrate that self-defense is not applied in this case”believes Yoann Maras, general secretary of the National Police Alliance union.

On April 24, a policeman killed two people in a vehicle that refused to be checked on the Pont-Neuf in Paris. Justice did not, at this stage, retain self-defense, and indicted him. Another officer, who was to work with the official that evening, describes a level-headed and thoughtful colleague. “Every night, we shoot on the docks. There were often fights where people took out knives, he never took out his weapon”, assures the latter. On the street, the police recalled often having only a few seconds to assess a situation and react to it.