They are regularly criticized in the context of maintaining order. One of its members is the subject of an investigation by the IGPN for a punch delivered to a protester on Monday in Paris.
A cracking motorbike, a rider adept at urban slaloms and a passenger ready to pounce. The image of the Motorized Violent Action Repression Brigades, or Brav-M, is now inseparable from the protests against pension reform. These units have been the target of criticism since spontaneous gatherings have been the scene of clashes between participants and the police. Opposition elected officials, including three deputies from France insoumise (LFI), demand their dissolution, accusing them “violent abuses” and of “disproportionate use of force” against protesters. Franceinfo explains to you what these units are which depend on the Paris police headquarters.
They were created during the movement of “yellow vests”
The Brav-Ms were first deployed four years ago, by the then Paris police chief, Didier Lallement. Presented as anti-breaker units, they then replaced the “rapid action detachment” (DAR) units. “They will have a superior projection capacity”Didier Lallement assured AFP on March 23, 2019. The Brav-Ms were born after the ransacking and burning of around a hundred businesses on the Champs-Elysées in the spring of 2019, during the 18th day of mobilization of “yellow vests”.
They are crews on motorcycles, which explains their great mobility. The agents wear a black uniform, a bulletproof vest, and act in pairs: a driver from the ranks of a motorcycle unit, who wears a white helmet, and a passenger policeman, with a black helmet, who belongs to companies intervention or security, or the anti-crime brigade (BAC).
They are not permanent units and the pairs change regularly. “We are spotted if we do the job on a demonstration, if we are voluntary, if we have the niaque”testifies a peacekeeper in a promotional video “in immersion” of the Paris police headquarters. The Brav-Ms are responsible for intervening during demonstrations, street violence and damage, in support of units in difficulty, but also to disperse groups of thugs. “The specificity of the Brav is the maintenance of order, with the passengers of the intervention companies. When we are not mobilized, we are always in pairs, we carry out security for the benefit of the police stations. arrondissement”completes a motorcyclist police brigadier, in the video of the police headquarters.
They are “adapted to disperse” groups of individuals
The Brav-Ms are mentioned in the new version of the National Law Enforcement Scheme (SNMO), published in December 2021. They are presented there as units that combine “mobility and ability to interpellate”. According to the Paris police chief, Laurent Nunez, the latest rallies against the pension reform in the capital are made up of “very mobile small groups that commit a lot of abuses”. The Brav-Ms, which “evolve in groups of 20-40”can “move to any point in the capital extremely quickly to put an end to abuses”he explained on franceinfo, Wednesday, rejecting the idea of dissolving these brigades.
“These are intervention companies, just like the CRS, the squadrons of mobile gendarmes, whose job it iscontinued Laurent Nunez. The only difference (…) is that they travel on motorcycles to go much faster.” The Brav-M police officers are assisted by vans, which transport reinforcements and evacuate those arrested, as recalled The Sunday newspaper.
They are decried for “their violent abuses”
These motorcycle police units are regularly singled out. During the “yellow vests” movement, several IGPN investigations were opened after accusations of police violence. The demonstrators accused these police officers in particular of hitting them on the ground. During recent rallies against pension reform, new accusations have been leveled against the Brav-M. The elected representatives of LFI who ask for their dissolution rely on “recent testimonies of violent and brutal abuses committed by these brigades against demonstrators”.
One of them came “to attend the demonstration as a simple spectator”Monday in Paris, told franceinfo about an outburst of violence: “Suddenly, two Brav-Ms came at me on foot. I felt that they were going to charge me, but I had nothing to reproach myself for. I did not move, they ran towards me, shouting, ‘What’s in your bag?’ I raised my arms and said they could look in the bag. One of the policemen looked around, there was hardly anyone there, and there he gave me a big punch in the face. jaw level. His colleague also hit me and hit me with a truncheon.” This man adds that he was then knocked to the ground and suffered “an armbar”.
An investigation was also opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office and entrusted to the IGPN after the broadcast on social networks of a video showing a Brav-M policeman punching a protester. According to the version of the policeman, of which France Télévisions became aware, he denies having wanted to throw a punch and evokes a context of strong tensions.
They recall the “voltigeurs”, dissolved after the death of Malik Oussekine
If the Brav-Ms are decried, it is also because they recall the platoons of “voltigeurs”, these pairs of motorcycle police officers who dispersed the demonstrators in the last century. Created in 1968, they were dissolved in 1986, after the death of Malik Oussekine under the blows of three of them, on the sidelines of a student demonstration. “The voltigeurs, it was a pilot who kicked, a passenger who kicked a truncheon. They were on red Hondas (…) The Brav remember that. It’s a kind of resurgence. is made to amaze, to do something important in terms of maintaining order: it’s the surprise effect”analyzed, in 2020, on France 2, in “Special Envoy”, the journalist David Dufresne, who identified all reports of police violence during the movement of “yellow vests”.
The Brav-Ms are feared even in the ranks of the police. Mathieu, a CRS with more than twenty years of experience in maintaining order, explains to Mediapart that these police “are used to intervene very quickly on a motorcycle, which can be terrifying”. Besides, “the prefect has direct control over them”, unlike CRS. The Brav-Ms “make a mess more than anything else. They bludgeon in all directions”believes Mathieu, emphasizing that“There are a lot of police officers who have gone through the BAC in their ranks and are trained to go into contact. It doesn’t matter who they are up against. That’s the danger.”