MEP Yannick Jadot says the number of deaths after a police officer fired at a moving vehicle increased fivefold after the 2017 public security law.
The day after a third night of riots all over France after the death of Nahel, 17, killed by a police officer during a traffic check, many politicians raise the question of the number of fatal shots by police officers after a refusal to comply, especially since the “public security” law of 2017. This text makes the use of firearms by the police more flexible. According to MEP Yannnik Jadot, guest of franceinfo Thursday, June 29, with this law, the number of these fatal shootings has increased very sharply. “Since this law, according to researchers, there have been five times more, five times more fatal shootings of people who are in vehicles”he says.
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In reality, there are no official figures. There is indeed an IGPN report published in 2021 which lists police shootings on moving vehicles, that is to say after a refusal to comply. But this report does not detail fatal and non-fatal shootings. franceinfo therefore contacted the Ministry of the Interior to obtain these figures, which replied that these figures were “being compiled”.
A study to be taken with caution
The figure put forward by Yannick Jadot comes from a study published last year in the journal of human sciences Mind, carried out by three researchers from the CNRS, the University of Lille and the University of Grenoble. Researchers analyzed the number of deaths caused by police shooting at moving vehicles between September 2011 and February 2017, when the law was passed, and again between March 2017 and August 2022. This study reveals that before the reform, the number of deaths caused by police shooting at moving vehicles was 0.06 per month on average and that it rose to 0.32 after the adoption of the text. It is therefore a little more than five times more, as Yannick Jadot asserts.
However, this study should be taken with caution. Because the researchers relied, among other things, on a database produced by the online media Basta which compiled the number of deaths following an action by the police over a period which goes from 1977 to 2022. However, Basta is not an official source. It is a medium, clearly marked on the left, and which is therefore not neutral.
However, it is possible to prove an effect of the 2017 law. The latest IGPN report clearly shows a peak in the number of shootings (fatal or non-fatal) on moving vehicles for the year of the adoption of the public security law. There were 202 against 137 the previous year, in 2016. This number then decreases slowly: 170 in 2018, 153 in 2020, to return to the level before the law, with 138 shots counted in 2022.