This weekend, police tried to stop a car in the 18th arrondissement in northern Paris. When the car did not stop, and reportedly drove towards the police, they chose to open fire.
“Eight or nine” shots were fired at a woman sitting in a passenger seat, she was hit in the head and died. The driver was also hit and is being cared for in hospital with serious injuries.
The three police officers involved have been fired and are suspected of crimes, French media report.
Just over two months ago, a police officer fired an automatic weapon at a car that did not stop for inspection at the Pont-Neuf bridge in central Paris. Two were shot dead and one was seriously injured.
“Capital punishment”
The deadly use of force provokes political reactions – of various kinds. It is a kind of focal point between France’s three currently largest political forces ahead of the parliamentary elections that begin this weekend.
– It is not normal that we kill someone who is unable to stay, says left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon to the radio channel France Inter.
This weekend, Mélenchon described the actions of the police as an unacceptable abuse of power and the incident as a “death penalty for disobeying orders”. He also fought with France’s largest police union, which in both previously mentioned cases has taken the police into defense. The radical left-wing leader has long advocated a comprehensive reform of the police force.
In this spring’s presidential election, Emmanuel Macron won against Marine Le Pen again, albeit by a slightly smaller margin. In the parliamentary elections, the president is mainly challenged by a new alliance between the left parties. Stock Photography. Several policemen killed
When the left-wing leader wrote “Police kill” on Twitter, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who belongs to President Emmanuel Macron’s party, went out and condemned him. Police officers deserve respect because they do a “difficult job and risk their lives at every moment”, says the minister according to among others Le Parisien.
– Let the investigations take place without using them as hostages in an election campaign, he says.
In recent years, police have also been murdered by jihadists and suspected drug dealers in several cases. In July 2020, a police officer was run over by a car that refused to stop and drove through the roadblock in which she stood. The large police unions complain about low wages and poor working conditions, not least in the suburbs of big cities.
But last Sunday, the corps also faced heavy criticism for its work on the Champions League final in football, which was decided in Paris, where crowds of visitors were exposed to tear gas by law enforcement and for crimes by local criminals.
New presumption of innocence
Nationalist leader Marine Le Pen goes even further in his defense of the police. She claims that Jean-Luc Mélenchon “always takes the side of criminals”.
– When you are a political leader at Mélenchon’s level, it is quite shameful to say that “the police are killing”, says the party National Assembly leader to Franceinfo.
Le Pen has long advocated a reform in which the police should be assumed to have had the right to use force in self-defense until proven otherwise.
– With that, the police in this case would not be arrested. We are reversing the burden of proof, she says.
The French parliamentary elections will be held in two rounds, on 12 and then on 19 June. In the opinion polls, Emmanuel Macron seems to have good chances of retaining a majority, but the new left-wing alliance led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon has risen in the polls.
Riot police at demonstrations in Paris on May 1 this year. Stock Photography.
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