They are in the sights of part of the opposition. As the social movement hardens against the pension reform, demonstrators denounce police violence on the part of the “Brigades for the repression of motorized violent action” (Brav-M), these police units created in 2019 during the movement yellow vests.
In a letter addressed to the Ministry of the Interior that France Info has obtained, three deputies from La France insoumise – Thomas Portes, Antoine Léaument and Ugo Bernalicis – ask for the “provisional dismantling of the Brav-M”. At a minimum, they ask the Minister of the Interior to “suspend” the use of these brigades as part of “your law enforcement doctrine”. If these brigades are often decried, the three deputies believe that they are far “from ensuring a return to appeasement” and that “their intervention contributes to the increase in tensions”.
Composed of pairs made up of a biker and a policeman, the “Brav-M” are distinguished from their colleagues by their mobility. On the ground, they are always accompanied by vans which transport reinforcements and evacuate those arrested. The objective of the “Brav-M”: to allow a great reactivity to the police when it is necessary to intervene in a remote place. Their mission is to “block the departures of wild processions” and to “carry out the necessary arrests”, indicates the police headquarters in an immersion video.
The “Brav-M” are mainly deployed in Paris and include a total of 180 motorcycles and 360 specialized police officers. A unit includes 18 motorcycles and 36 police officers, informs the police headquarters. They are helmeted, often hooded and dressed in black with a bulletproof vest. They have truncheons and LBD (defense ball launcher). It should be noted that these units are not deployed on a permanent basis, the authorities calling on them only when they fear violent and dispersed actions.
Despite its young age, the “Brav-M” already has bad press. And for good reason: it is reminiscent of the old “voltigeurs”, duos of police officers mounted on a motorcycle who dispersed the demonstrators while remaining on their vehicle. These units had been dissolved in 1986 after the death of Malik Oussekine. The student had been beaten by three acrobats on the sidelines of student protests in Paris. “Monday evening, I saw “Brav-M” prowling around the Sorbonne, it reminded me of December 1986, when Malik Oussekine was killed by acrobats”, sighed Bastien François, professor of political science in the program ” C The Weekly”.
On social networks, several videos show police violence attributed to the “Brav-M”. On March 18, the independent journalist, Clément Lanot said he had been targeted by a truncheon from this unit.” While putting away the broken equipment following this blow, a CRS intimidated me on the ground by miming a kick. He stopped seeing that I am a journalist. As always, I am identifiable: armband + visible press card”, he says on Twitter.
According to the police headquarters, motorcycles are just “a vector of movement and “the police always intervene on foot”. However, a video on Twitter taken by Clovis Daguerre, an environmental parliamentary collaborator, shows these police officers on motorcycles driving towards the demonstrators. Another tweet shows “Brav-M” agents violently charging protesters on Monday, March 20. One of the officers is seen hitting young people for no apparent reason. “I tell myself that the “M” in “Brav-M” must mean Truncheon. In view of these images”, comments Sebastian Roché, research director at the CNRS, specialist in police and security issues in a tweet.
Another example: a man was also violently beaten by a member of the Brav-M and fell instantly. This is what Timothée Forget shows on Twitter in his video.
“Stop the massacre,” reacted the rebellious deputy Raquel Garrido. At the microphone of BFM TV this Tuesday, the prefect of police, Laurent Nunez indicated that he had requested the opening of an administrative investigation with the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), after seeing this video. The next day, he assured on France info that the “Brav-M” was a “unit particularly adapted to be able to disperse” “groups of individuals”.
In their letter, the three deputies of LFI point the finger at the “drifts of the techniques of maintaining order observed by the brigades for the repression of motorized violent actions (Brav-M)” during the demonstrations against the pension reform. The elected officials say they rely on “recent testimonies of violent and brutal abuses committed by these brigades against the demonstrators”.
New rallies were organized on Tuesday evening against the pension reform in several large French cities, the scene for some of them, including Paris, of tensions between the police and demonstrators, according to AFP journalists. In the capital, 46 arrests took place, according to a provisional report established shortly before midnight, from a police source. Gérald Darmanin announced that “12,000 police and gendarmes” would be mobilized in France on Thursday, including “5,000 in Paris” for the new day of inter-union action against the disputed pension reform.