Hundreds of arrests and police detentions have been ordered in France since last Thursday. “Most of these actions did not receive any legal action (after Thursday’s demonstration in Paris, Place de la Concorde, only 9 of the 292 demonstrators in police custody led to criminal proceedings,” noted the French Judges Association). show, and not as a means of ensuring that a suspect is available to interrogators.
Earlier in the week, the French Syndicate of the Judiciary accused Emmanuel Macron’s government of instrumentalizing justice. After Thursday’s demonstration at the Place de la Concorde, “of the 292 demonstrators in police custody, only nine have led to criminal proceedings”, he lamented, condemning the “grossly abusive” use of police custody and recalling that “judicial authority is not in service. Repression of social movement”. .
According to a recent consolidated report by the Paris prosecutor’s office, 425 people were placed in pre-trial detention in the first three evenings of the spontaneous demonstrations, of whom only 52 were eventually prosecuted.
Last weekend, several videos went viral about the behavior of some police officers during these protests, sparking outrage.
In one of them, a member of the police force violently slapped a protester in the face as he fell unconscious. A violent gesture and deemed “inappropriate” by a police official, while the Paris prosecutor’s office announced it was opening a preliminary investigation.
Here is the press release from the French Syndicate of Justice
