Internal investigation at the French police following the dissemination of a video on social networks in which an officer hits a protester who falls to the ground. The filmed events go back to yesterday. Since last night, the left has been denouncing “forced arrests” by the police and urging the release of unjustly arrested demonstrators. In the video, which has been circulating on the internet, BFM TV asked some questions to Prefect Laurent Nunez, who announced that he had asked for an investigation to be launched.
The events took place in Paris, on rue Saint Antoine, near the Bastille, during the “spontaneous” demonstration against pension reform. The video was posted on Twitter at 11:43 p.m. by a journalism student who has been following the demonstrations for days. An officer from police group Brav-M is seen delivering a violent right punch to the face of a protester who falls to the ground and remains motionless. Speaking to BFM, Nunez said he found that the protester in question spoke out against the arrest of an individual who damaged a newsstand seen in the video. However, the protester is hit by the policeman as he backs away, “and if you watch this sequence – the prefect admits – the policeman’s gesture seems out of place”. The prefect specified that he had checked that the person concerned had not suffered serious injuries and had not been stopped.
Law enforcement officials, police and gendarmerie, “have a duty to set an example,” said French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on the day that lawyers, judges and politicians from the transalpine left denounced police violence during spontaneous demonstrations against the pension reform that France has been banning since incited last Thursday. “In the face of this violence (against the pension reform, editor’s note) I would like to pay tribute to our security forces who ensure the security of the demonstrations. And I repeat, they have a duty to set an example and.”
you are aware of this, police officers and gendarmes,” said the Prime Minister during Question Time to the National Assembly, assuring that “every report” on every police visit would be “examined”.
Last night, during the fifth evening of spontaneous demonstrations against Macron’s reform, 287 people were arrested, 234 of them in Paris. Faced with criticism from lawyers, judges and leftists, Paris Prefect Laurent Nunez assured that “there have been no stops
unjustified. I can’t say that.” Meanwhile, anti-reform French youth in Paris have devised new collective street action tactics inspired by Hong Kong protesters to be more fluid and unpredictable in street demonstrations. “We’re ‘be water’ like Hong Kong… Let’s definitely try to be,” revealed Romain, a student who was demonstrating in Paris last night, adding: “We have to do our actions renew to keep up the pressure” against the pension reform.
And in the meantime, the Paris City Council decided today to activate a “crisis team” to deal with the current situation in the Ville Lumière, after the fifth evening of spontaneous street demonstrations against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform and with over 9,000 tons of
Garbage is still lying on the streets because of the garbage collectors’ strike that has been going on for two weeks. The crisis unit, already activated during the health crisis related to Covid-19 or due to episodes of severe summer heat, will meet daily with the socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, her councilors and the mini-mayors of the district to monitor the evolution of the situation and “ensuring the continuity of public services,” says a statement from the Paris city government, which has a partnership with Rome. Hidalgo, who supports social protests against Emmanuel Macron’s government, “calls for calm
and urges the government to withdraw its reform and start dialogue with social partners”. twelfth consecutive day of sanitation strike
urban, with over ten thousand tons of garbage left abandoned on the ground in the four corners of the capital.
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