TRUE OR FALSE. Does the New Popular Front really want to “disarm the police”, as the far right claims?

Contrary to what Jordan Bardella and Marion Maréchal may have said, the program of the New Popular Front only mentions the ban on defensive ball throwers.

In the middle of the campaign, anything goes to convince voters. Seven days before the second round of the legislative elections, on Sunday July 7, the National Rally and its allies are attacking the New Popular Front, which the far right will face in many duels. “I will not say that, as a matter of principle, there is police violence, that our police officers are guilty and that the police must be disarmed, as the New Popular Front wishes to do.”Jordan Bardella said during a debate on France 2 on Thursday, June 27.

Two days earlier, Marion Maréchal broadcast the same information on her Instagram account: according to her, the left alliance wants “Free 16,000 prisoners, disarm the police, remove the anti-squatting law [et] separatism law. All of this is perfectly assumed!” The deputy Julien Odoul, re-elected in the first round in the 3rd constituency of Yonne, even made it one of his campaign arguments by including it on his leaflet. He also accused the New Popular Front of wanting to abolish the anti-crime brigade. But what is it really?

In July 2023, Manuel Bompard, coordinator of La France insoumise, affirmed on BFMTV that there was a need for “police as unarmed as possible”. If the point of view of the radical left party is clear on this subject, nothing indicates in the program of the New Popular Front (PDF) that the police will be disarmed. The left-wing alliance nevertheless assures that it wants “ban LBDs and mutilation grenades”She therefore intends to take away from the police two weapons that they currently have, but does not propose to give them away. “disarm”contrary to what several members of the RN have argued.

What about the removal of the BAC mentioned by Julien Odoul? The anti-crime brigade is a unit of the national police which intervenes “in sensitive areas to ensure or restore public order”, according to the National Police website. No measure concerns the BAC in the program of the New Popular Front, but the left plans to “dismantle the Brav-M”these highly criticized motorized violent action repression brigades. As of April 2023, a petition calling for their abolition had reached more than 260,000 signatures.

Other services are in the sights of the left alliance. The New Popular Front wishes “delete the IGPN and the IGGN”. The General Inspectorate of the National Police and the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie form what is called “the police of the police” and their objective is to monitor the way in which police officers and gendarmes execute the laws, orders and regulations that concern them. The left wants to replace them with “a new independent body, attached to the Defender of Rights”.

The New Popular Front also intends to tackle the Darmanin reform which “weakened the judicial police”. This text came into force by decree and aims to place under a single head the director of the national police, the intelligence services, public security, border police and judicial police. The reform had provoked strong reactions from police officers and magistrates who feared a loss of“independence”The left alliance intends to reverse this reform. It also intends to re-establish community policing to ensure “the safety of the population”. The latter was abolished in 2003 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior.