Supporting figures, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin affirmed Tuesday, September 20 before the Law Commission of the National Assembly that “shooting by police and gendarmes is not particularly on the increase” during refusals to comply, while at least nine people have died since the beginning of the year, killed by police fire during refusal to comply, according to a count by franceinfo.
>> Shooting during a refusal to comply: “It is never the police who are at the origin of what is happening”, affirms the director general of the national police
Gérald Darmanin counts the shots of the police and the gendarmes. “137 in 2016, 202 in 2017, 170 in 2018, 147 in 2019, 153 in 2020, which I remind you was a Covid year where there were supposed to be fewer vehicles on the road, 157 in 2021. If I compared with the full years of 2018 and 2017, they even shoot proportionally less than in the years before the Covid”he concludes.
He recalls that each time a police officer or a gendarme uses his service weapon, an investigation is opened and he is heard by a magistrate. Several investigations are indeed open after the death of a motorist in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) on September 7, the death of a passenger during an anti-drug operation in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) the same day , or the death of another motorist on August 30 in Neuville-en-Ferrain (North), all killed by police fire.
Gérald Darmanin would like to remind you that “refusals to comply have increased by 13% since 2016. In 2021, there were 27,609, when they were 24,409 in 2016. Since January 1, 41 seriously injured in the ranks of the police and the gendarmerie because of refusal to comply.” A policeman was seriously injured by a vehicle on Monday evening in Anzin, in the North, without his life being in danger. This event had a strong echo in the press this Tuesday morning but “there were, just this night, five refusals to comply”assures Gérald Darmanin by reading an extract from the note which is deposited every morning on his desk to report to him the events of the night.
“In Le Relecq-Kerhuon (Finistère), use of weapons by the police when a vehicle reported stolen refused to comply, shooting towards the tire, fleeing vehiclehe lists. In Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), at 8:30 p.m., refusal to comply by a vehicle which crashed on its own in a bend, the driver was injured. In Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), refusal to comply by a vehicle which hits another vehicle, author arrested, the occupant was 70 years old in the vehicle which was parked normally, she is today at the hospital center of Nantes”indicates the Minister of the Interior, and then “In Anzin, we just talked about this poor policeman. And in Etampes (Essonne) where the vehicle’s refusal to comply ends up in a tree, the driver is injured and was, if I dare say, obviously under the ‘alcohol footprint’.