In France the voltage is skyrocketing: the daily riots, with record numbers – beyond a thousand arrests every night – the looting, the throwing of stones, the attacks on the supermarkets, are putting a strain on the maintenance of order. With the president Emmanuel Macron and his government squeezed amidst the demands of police and the instances of protestersgot off the pizza after the death of seventeen of Nanterre, Nahelhit by a bullet fired at point blank range by a police officer. A fire even more the climate has arrived a press release from labor unions of police, who uses very harsh tones: “It is the time of battle“. Words that made the left rise up, pointing the finger at “a threat of sedition” and “a call for civil war“.
A controversy that comes as clashes and violence continue in many French cities on Saturday. the interior minister, Gerald Darmaninfielded a total of 45 thousand policemen e gendarme. Particular attention to Marseille e Lyon, the cities where the protests are reaching the highest level of violence. In Lyon, the Crs 8, specializing in urban violence. The age media of people stopped by the police during the latest riots and violence in France is 17 yearsDarmanin always declared, emphasizing – after the Minister of Justice had also done so – the young age of accident participants, including “arsonists of 12-13 years old“.
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Vandalized and looted shops in Lyon. Riots in Paris where a McDonald’s was attacked (video)
Union statement
Exasperated by months of tension – from January to May they had been under pressure for manifestations against the pension reform – the police report theirs situation. My he language used by their unions, in a very delicate moment in France, does nothing but increase the level of confrontation. The “incendiary” message was signed by the majority police union, Alliancethat’s right WHAT police: “That’s enough… faced with these wild hordes, asking for calm is no longer enough, great-grandmother impose it! – write the trade unions – Restore the republican order and put the detainees in conditions of do no harm they must be the only political signals”. At the end of the press release, written in bold, the explosive words: “Today the policemen are fighting, because we are at war. Tomorrow, we’ll do it resistence and the government will have to become aware of it”.
The reaction of the left
Among the harshest reactions that of Jean–Luc Melenchonleader of La France Insoumisethe main left-wing political group: “The ‘trade unions’ calling for civil war must learn to be quiet – he tweeted – we have seen how this type of statement results in behaviors murders“. Mélenchon invited “political power” to “take back the police: whoever wants calm does not throw fuel on the fire“. He was echoed by the deputy of his own party, indicated by many as his successor, François Ruffin: “The police unions say they are ‘at war’ and are preparing ‘resistance’, even against the government”. From the same party, the deputy Ugo Bernalice calls for the sanction for “instigation to arm yourself against the authority of the state”. The ecologist Sandrine Rousseau calls the statement “a threat of sedition.”
There was also a rerun of the labor unions: “When we say we will resist – he said Thierry Clairby UNSA Police – it means we will fight for a better legal protection of the policemen”. Meanwhile, among the uniforms, circulates a letter template to be signed to declare the will to “return the service weapon” by those who do not consider themselves enough protected legally in case he opens fire.