Tension without incident in the marches against police violence in France

On Saturday, July 8, “citizens’ marches” against police violence are being called in several French cities, but the Police Prefecture has prohibited a rally in Paris in memory of Adama Traoré.

Assa Traoré, Adama’s sister and figure in the fight against police violence, had indicated that she would be present “on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. at the Place de la République”, after the ban on the planned march in Persan and Beaumont- sur-Oise, in Val -d’Oise, in memory of his brother who died shortly after his arrest by the gendarmes in July 2016.

This announcement was quickly broadcast by left-wing activists and deputies from rebellious France, but Assa Traoré, however, did not directly call on her followers to join her, which could have been assimilated to organizing a wild demonstration, so so illegal.

In its decree posted online shortly after 10:30 a.m., the police headquarters justifies the ban on “an undeclared gathering that presents a risk of disturbing public order.”

In any case, the concentration took place today, July 8, in the center of Paris, with tension but without incident, after the act was prohibited by the authorities.

Around a thousand people attended the call in the Plaza de la República in response to the appeal of the Justice for Adama association, which sought to remember, as every year, the death of Ademá Traoré, a 24-year-old Frenchman with a Malian father.

Despite the fact that the authorities had prohibited the act, the police did not prevent it from taking place, with the Traoré family surrounded by a cloud of television cameras and graphics, and limited themselves to controlling the attendees.

“Background to the Riots”

The decree, signed by Police Prefect Laurent Núñez, recalls the “tense context” and the “five consecutive nights” of urban violence in the Parisian region and in the capital, following the death of 17-year-old Nahel M., dead by a policeman during a roadblock on June 27 in Nanterre. A fact that is under investigation.

The police headquarters thus takes up the same arguments that motivated the ban decision taken on Thursday by the prefect of Val-d’Oise and confirmed on Friday night by the administrative court for the march in Persan and Beaumont-sur-Oise.

The emergency judges had justified their decision by “the context of the riots that followed the death of Nahel.”

The latter “considered that, although the violence has decreased in recent days, its extremely recent nature does not allow us to assume that any risk of disturbance of public order has disappeared,” the administrative court of Cergy-Pontoise had argued.

The prefecture had asked “the organizers to respect this judicial decision and to call publicly not to go to the place.”

“These marches have always proceeded calmly. It is precisely the fact of banning them that can cause tensions, because people are angry, you have to understand that,” the LFI deputy for Essonne, Antoine Léaument, commented on BFMTV, later specifying in a Tweet. that he would go to the Place de la République.

“The only response given by the authorities after the murder of the young Nahel is an authoritarian response, order, a repressive response,” Patrick Baudouin, president of the League for Human Rights (LDH), also estimated in FranceInfo.

Marches marked by “mourning and anger”

Thirty other demonstrations against police violence have been listed across France on an online map, from Lille to Marseille and from Nantes to Strasbourg.

Nearly a hundred associations, unions and political parties classified on the left, including LFI, EELV, CGT and Solidaires, called these “citizens’ marches” to express “mourning and anger” and denounce policies described as “discriminatory” against Popular neighbourhoods .

These organizations, mobilized “for the maintenance of public and individual liberties”, demand “a deep reform of the police, their intervention techniques and their weapons”.

The government spokesman, Olivier Véran, criticized on Friday the organizations whose “only proposal is… to call demonstrations (…) on Saturday in the big cities that have not yet handed over the looting.” .

In particular, he pointed to the responsibility of elected officials, including those from the insubordinate France, who had called to join Beaumont’s banned march, accusing them of straying from the “republican arc”.

“If they are the republican arch, who do you want?” Jean-Luc Mélenchon replied. “So much the better, we are left with the displeased,” concluded the leader of rebel France on Twitter.

Since June 27, more than 3,700 people have been detained in connection with these riots, including some 1,160 minors, according to figures from the Foreign Ministry, which reported nearly 400 incarcerations on Friday.

With AFP, original note