Police academy trainer suspended after subjecting students to simulated drowning

“The national police, including in its schools, must respect the rules like everyone else,” Minister Gérald Darmanin reacted Thursday morning on France 2. The man targeted by these accusations will be summoned at the end of the week.

A trainer from the Oissel police academy (Seine-Maritime), near Rouen, was suspended after the broadcast of a video showing a simulated drowning imposed on students, the national police announced on Thursday 30 november. This video, revealed by The Parisian and BFMTV, shows students from this school squatting along a wall, a black cloth on their heads on which water is poured while they are asked to sing the Marseillaise. The national police explained that it was a “initiative of a police academy trainer”in a message posted on the social network

“This behavior and this method cannot be tolerated and are strongly condemned by the General Directorate of the National Police”, added the institution. This announced an administrative investigation by the IGPN, the “suspension of the trainer in intervention safety techniques (FTSI)”and the summoning of the school director by the Director General of the National Police (DGPN).

“I asked that we suspend this trainer, to summon the director of the Oissel police academydeclared on France 2 the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, Thursday morning. He will be summoned by the end of the week, we will draw the consequences”. The minister also added that “the national police, including in its schools,[evai]don’t respect the rules like everyone else”. There is no “possibility of doing this kind of absolutely unacceptable thing”.

Questioned on franceinfo, Sonia Fibleuil, spokesperson for the national police, explains that it is necessary for student police officers to train in shooting under stressful conditions. “When we are in the field, we always intervene in a stressful situation. From the moment we draw our weapon, it is inevitably a stressful situation”, she explains. The spokesperson points out, however, that this state of stress cannot under any circumstances be obtained with such practices. “We strongly condemn the facts as shown in this video”she recalls.