In a split second, everything changes. In a video posted on social networks just hours after Nahel’s death on Tuesday, June 27, we can see two police officers leaning towards the passenger compartment of a car. One of them takes aim at the driver. “You’re going to take a bullet in the head”, we hear in the background, without this sentence being clearly attributed to one of them. The car speeds off again, and a shot goes off in the direction of the passenger compartment. The vehicle ends its race a few tens of meters further and Nahel, a young 17-year-old driver, will be declared dead a few minutes later by the firefighters. The policeman behind the shooting, aged 38, has since been indicted for intentional homicide, and remanded in custody. While the prefect of police of Paris Laurent Nunez indicated Wednesday, June 28 on CNews that he was a “seasoned police brigadier, who had the confidence of his hierarchy”, this drama nevertheless revives the debate on the training security forces, in particular on the use of their firearms in the field.
The use of such weapons is largely supervised by homeland security code, relaxed in 2017 and which specifies that agents can only use it in cases of “absolute necessity” and in a “strictly proportionate” manner, in a series of well-defined cases. They can thus only be used in the event of attacks or threats to the life or physical integrity of civil servants or that of others, when, “after two summonses given aloud”, the agents cannot otherwise defend the places they occupy or the people entrusted to them. If after these two warnings, people who seek to escape are “likely to perpetrate, in their flight, attacks on their life, their physical integrity or that of others”, to prevent the reiteration of a murder or attempted murder or, as in the supposed case of Nahel, in the event of “refusal to comply”. Their weapon may thus be used when the officers “cannot immobilize, other than by the use of weapons, vehicles, boats or other means of transport, whose drivers do not obey the order to stop and whose occupants are likely to perpetrate, in their flight, attacks on their life or their physical integrity or those of others”, specifies the Code of internal security.
To what extent do law enforcement know about – and enforce – this strict regulation? From the first weeks of their schooling, the legal texts surrounding the use of weapons are supposed to be taught to future agents. “Often, they have absolutely no knowledge of the legal framework on the issue of shooting. They then become aware of the richness of the texts, and the difficulty they will have in justifying a possible shooting action”, says at L’Express Julien*, trainer in intervention techniques and safety (FTSI) in charge of theoretical training in the use of weapons. For nearly 20 years, the man tirelessly repeats to his students the various laws that govern the use of these firearms, illustrating his words with video examples or concrete cases.
“Often, they are shown examples without police firing, raising awareness from the start that the latter should only be a last resort solution,” he explains. According to the trainer, each police student thus benefits during his first year from an 8-hour course around Article 122-5 of the Penal Code on self-defense and on the legal framework for the use of weapons, a course “lasting just over four hours” on “decision-making and discernment”, and a one-hour theoretical training on the specific use of firearms in roadside checks. “We can only make them aware that real life is not a video game, that the uniform does not give them the power to shoot anyhow and anytime, and that they will have to know be discerning,” he said.
“Sanitized” training
Once this theoretical training has been completed, the students begin a practical training of 33 four-hour sessions, devoted to the handling of weapons. Of these 132 hours, 44 will be devoted to the use of the automatic pistol. “At each start of the session, we recontextualize, we recall in which specific cases they could or could not shoot”, insists Pierre P.*, national referent for initial training in the field of techniques and safety in intervention (TSI) . Most of these sessions will take place in a shooting range, in order to teach young police officers how to use the tool. “One-handed shooting”, “weak handed shooting”, way of moving, reactivity… “Every week, they apply what they are taught on paper targets. Some of them may represent an armed man, but also a child with a flower, passers-by… They must then analyze which weapon to use or not”, adds Thierry Collas, FTSI at the Nîmes police school and South zonal delegate of the Unsa Police union.
To get as close as possible to the reality on the ground, the students are also placed in a situation. “There are, for example, four hours of practical exercises on the interception of a vehicle with presumed dangerous individuals on board, simulations of burglaries or domestic violence, exercises with rubber bullets from which you have to protect yourself. “, list Pierre P. Recently, each police academy has also acquired a 2D simulator, which projects specific situations onto a screen allowing students to test their responsiveness and their judgment on a series of specific cases. “Certain exercises sometimes create stress,” says the trainer, who recalls that psychologists regularly intervene in initial training to work on student stress management.
But despite these 132 hours of practice, Pierre P. admits that these simulations remain “sanitized”. “The adrenaline rush that agents can experience in the reality of a mission does not exist, or very little, in training,” he believes. For his part, Julien describes training structures that would be a little too close to “the world of care bears”. “Sometimes we try to push the students to the limit to see how they react to the pressure, but that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground,” he regrets. “Once outside, some did not imagine that it could be so violent”.
Shortage of trainers
Once they have graduated, how are agents monitored throughout their career? Continuing training in techniques and safety in intervention, in particular supposed to guarantee mastery of the use of weapons, is “compulsory”, recalls a report by the Court of Auditors on police training published in February 2022. With a minimum annual hourly volume of twelve hours, this training includes in particular three sessions relating to the use of the individual weapon, allowing the firing of “90 cartridges”. But according to the organization, these mandatory training obligations are “not fulfilled”. In 2019, only 62% of active personnel had completed their three shooting sessions, and the rate of completion of the 12 hours of annual regulatory training was only 24% for the General Directorate of the National Police, and 14% for the Paris police headquarters. A figure “all the more worrying as the police in the Paris region are younger than the average and intervene in sensitive areas”, alert the authors of the report, who explain in particular this lack of training by a lack of professionals in number. sufficient. With a ratio of one FTSI for 235 personnel to be trained in 2021 at the police headquarters – while the Court of Auditors recommends one trainer for 120 people -, the structure would thus show a deficit of 130 trainers.
“There is a lack of manpower everywhere, and that unfortunately does not seem to be the priority”, confirms Thierry Collas. “The problem is that if the officials do not have an update of technical gestures, a reminder of the legal framework, of the texts, they will not be able to react effectively on the public highway”, he breathes. “And a poorly trained official can have more than difficult reactions during certain checks”. For Grégory Joron, secretary general of the SGP Police union, the quality of this continuing education leaves something to be desired. “Even when they are followed, they are absolutely insufficient,” he said. “Between firing 20 cartridges at 10 meters without stress and firing in response in a degraded situation, there is a world!”. Not to mention “the lack of any continuous theoretical training”, adds Julien, who regrets that legal training stops at the school gates. “Some civil servants have never been trained in the 2017 text. I challenge you to ask the question to an agent on the public highway or in any police station… Very few will be able to tell you the five use cases of the weapon provided for by the internal security code”, annoys the trainer.
*Name has been changed.