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Can we speak of police brutality?

Writer's picture: AmrutaAmruta

Updated: Sep 5, 2023

In the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, a large protest was held in Paris, with thousands defying a ban against public gathering to show up in the streets on 14 June 2020. France had just begun easing its lockdown, during which a spate of tensions broke in Parisian suburbs between the police and the people who are largely from minority (Black/Arab) backgrounds. Here is my translation of Clément Viktorovitch's eloquent analysis of the situation in the 'Les Points sur les Is' section of 'Clique', a TV programme on Canal+ France, aired on 9 June 2020.




"We’re going to talk about the thorny issue of police brutality today.

Since the beginning of the lockdown, we have seen a number of videos emerge on social media in which members of the police appear to have subjected individuals in the suburbs to checks with disproportionate force. Things came to a head last Saturday when a young man was injured in the leg after his motorcycle “collided” with the open door of a police vehicle. The incident sparked off several evenings of tensions between the youth from these areas and the police, and this is of course not the first time we are seeing something like this play out in France.


We don’t have to go too far back in time to find precedents: in 2018, Aboubakar Fofana died from a bullet wound to the neck during a police check by reserve units of the national police force in Nantes; in 2016, Adama Traoré died in police custody after his arrest in Beaumont-sur-Oise; in 2005, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré died while trying to escape from the police in Clichy-sur-Bois. Each of these incidents provoked great confrontations between the police and the citizens. The difference between all these instances and Saturday’s incident is that the victim in this case has fortunately not succumbed to his injuries and has since made an appeal to the people to maintain calm.


What hasn’t changed is the way public discourse has taken shape following these incidents. As usual, we have the emergence of two polarized positions. On one hand, we have those that accuse and vilify suburban youths, often backing their positions by pointing out that some young protestors lit fire to a school in Genevilliers recently in the ensuing face-offs, which is of course an undeniably foolish thing to do. On the other hand, we have those that justify their actions by saying that in these areas, which already suffer greatly from poverty, unemployment and poor housing, the lockdown is creating serious social difficulties, which is also, of course, absolutely true.


I would like to move away from this toxic bind, and the only way I see to do this is neither to “accuse” nor “justify” but to understand WHY such incidents unfailingly break out after a young man has been injured or killed by the police. We could of course, see these events as expressions of anger, revolt or revenge, but I’m of the view that they go deeper than that. My theory is that these tragedies shake the very foundations of the State and the Social Contract.

To explain my point, I’ll take you back to the basics: what is a State? In political science, the most authoritative definition of the State comes from Max Weber, who said that “a state is a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” The idea behind this is that the State emerged as a way to end the tyranny of each man for himself, or as the proverb goes, of man being a wolf to man. Without the State, we would be subject to arbitrary acts of aggression and violence from our fellow humans. By taking over the power of being the only entity to legitimately use force, the State assumes the responsibility of maintaining law and order in its territory from which it draws authority.


This seems extremely academic, I know. But in reality, this definition is very important because it demonstrates that the use of force is part of the normal business of the police and that the maintenance of public order is thus an intrinsically violent process, as long as it is legitimately conducted. Police action can be called legitimate as long as it is exercised in accordance with the laws of the land and the fundamental human rights of all individuals. But, when Amine Bentousi succumbed to a police gunshot in the back in 2012, we knew that some lines were definitely crossed and that his fundamental rights as a human being were not completely respected.


And this brings me to my point. The use of force by the police can be said to be disproportionate or unjustified when it is no longer legitimate. And when this use of force is no longer legitimate, it brings into question our entire social contract. When individuals are mistreated, injured and even killed by those very people who are supposed to be protecting them and maintaining law and order, it is the very rationale behind the creation of a State that is brought into question and that is the basis of the respect it is supposed to inspire in its citizens.


This is what can help us understand WHY so many young people took to the streets over the past few days. Right or wrong, consciously or not, they sense that the illegitimate use of force by the police undermines the foundations of our ability to live together as a society.

Having said that, what can we do? How can we find a way out of a situation in which, as this heading from 'Le Monde' puts it, young individuals from the suburb feel a “great sense of injustice” while the police speak of a climate of “widespread impunity”? Well, precisely, by calling upon the State to rebuild its engagement with and reinvest in its own territory. A number of studies have shown that suburbs suffer from a shocking lack of public services. The latest is an official report by the French National Assembly in May 2018 on the Seine-Saint-Denis region. On the single issue of education, for instance, the report states that school teachers are on average much younger, more inexperienced, remain in their jobs for shorter periods and are much less likelier to be replaced when they leave here than in other parts of the city. 50% of positions in the school health services here remain vacant. In short, to paraphrase in the words of the sociologist Benjamin Moignard: “the least endowed of all Parisian schools is still better off than the most endowed schools in Seine-Saint-Denis.” The authors of the report came to similar conclusions for services such as healthcare, security and judicial services.


So, let’s have the courage to call a spade a spade. The State is not performing its most basic functions in the suburbs, areas which happen to be some of the poorest in all of France and thus NEED these functions to be properly performed even more. These are the facts. Let’s begin by addressing these inequalities, because they are unsustainable. Let us also not deny the existence of illegitimate police brutality, because it is exercised not only in the suburbs, but was also on full display during the Yellow Vests protests. Let us call for a review of the General Inspectorate of the National Police, which has come in for some heavy criticism. And, at the same time, let’s deal firmly with delinquent behaviour such as the incident in which a school was set on fire by a bunch of young protestors in Genevilliers. By doing so, the State can reclaim its authority and regain its noble, sacred and protective role in society."


In other words is a series in which I offer English translations of cultural discourse from contemporary French media.

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