Peaceful demonstration in Paris, but the French police attack

A demonstration in memory of Adama Traoré, who was killed by police on July 16, 2016 in Barracks Bersanne, a small village on the outskirts of Paris, ends peacefully. This was not taken for granted: on Thursday the prefecture forbade its organization, despite the fact that for seven years the march organized by the Adama Commission had always been in absolute calm.

In response to the authorities’ ban on marching through Persanne and the neighboring commune of Beaumont-sur-Oise, the Adama Committee and its leader, Asa Traoré, the boy’s sister, appealed to them to go to République, in the heart of Paris.

Suddenly, a small group of young men from Comité Adama are surrounded by some Brav-M cops, who quietly disperse. They target one: they surround it, charge the rest with clubs and kicks, and seize their target. An officer places his leg on the neck of Youssef, Assa Traoré’s brother: a gesture reminiscent of photographs of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as well as records of Adama Traore’s arrest. “I can’t breathe,” he told the gendarmes in Fars in 2016, according to their own statements at the trial. Youssef, he, will be released a few hours later from the police station in the 5th arrondissement of Paris on a stretcher – fortunately alive. As for Asa, on the other hand, she will initiate court proceedings for an unauthorized demonstration.

Arbitrary and violent arrest, unjustified deprivation of liberty, a prisoner on a stretcher, all at the end of a peaceful demonstration against police violence: it is difficult to imagine a scene more representative of the French police state and its relationship with society.

today, At first, it was a success for the movements of families of police victims who organized it, along with the Adama Committee. “Justice of Hassan,” “The Truth by Claude Jean-Pierre,” “Muhammadou,” “Adama”… The names on the T-shirts represent every dead man killed by the regime forces in recent years. Read together, worn by individuals – relatives and friends – they give the impression of a constellation of mourning and anger, made even more tragic by the dates accompanying death.

There are those who have been waiting for justice since 2001, like Mohamedou, who died in the 18th arrondissement of Paris chased by the police; who since 2007, when Lamine Dieng died of suffocation in a police car in Paris; From since 2016, to be precise, when Adama Traore walked out dead from the Birsan police station.

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Around families, there is also a whole lot of lefties who have come to lend a hand. There are trade unions like the CGT, there are parties like the Greens and Insoumis, and associations like ATTAC. In front of the crowd, next to Assa Traoré, France’s Insoumise deputy Eric Coquerel made a “ruthless assessment” of the past year of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency, based on the “violation of the constitutional right to demonstrate” and on the immoderate. Using “police violence… what does the government want if not for provocation?”

As the shoes of the deputies and families of the victims soak in the fountain in the center of the square, the police get dangerously close to the crowd. The historical comrade of Jana Adama urges the service of the regime to leave in procession: “Here they silence us like pigeons,” he says. The procession takes shape, and sets off again towards the Gare de l’Est, where Assa Traoré will then close with a crowd from the roof of a coach shelter.

High Commissioner The United Nations Human Rights Organization, through its spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani, declared on June 30 that France “must seriously deal with the deep problems of racism among the forces of the regime.” The UN representatives called on the “authorities to pay attention to the use of force by the police” during the demonstrations, “while respecting the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality”.

Words rejected by the French diplomacy to the sender with hidden annoyance. A statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “France rejects arguments that it considers excessive,” and that “any accusation of systemic racism by the forces of the regime in France is unfounded.” An attitude that could be described as unconstructive is an understatement, but it reflects the position of the police unions, which is one of the main obstacles to any police reform.

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after the death of bees A coy condemnation by Macron, France’s largest police union, the Alliance, declared that the policemen were “at war” against “hordes of savages”, threatening to “enter resistance” against the government. And the same union – along with other police organizations – had demonstrated in the summer of 2020 against the decision of the Minister of the Interior at the time, Christophe Castaner, to ban “strangulation”, a technique used by agents to strangle a person during wartime. ‘Arrest. Strangulation (clé d’étranglement) has claimed the lives of at least ten people since 2007, according to mediapart. After protests from the unions, the technique was retained, while the minister, who was replaced by the current owner of the interior, Gerald Darmanin, was not.