Over 2000 injuries caused by the police, over 100 of them serious. 15 demonstrators and journalists have lost an eye due to the use of “less-than-lethal” bullets. A young confidant close to the president and ruling party is under investigation for abuse of power after he assaulted protesters last summer.
The government denies any use of excessive force, and allows its security services to continue to use explosive grenades to control unruly demonstrations, unlike their peers throughout the continent. This is not a dispatch about a dictatorship. This news comes from France, a country led not by an ailing autocrat, but the spry Emmanuel Macron, hailed as a “potent force,” maybe even “Europe’s saviour” only 18 months ago. The ongoing gilets jaunes, yellow vest, movement has brought attention to the problem of police violence in France.
Since 1968
True such violence, especially against protesters in the capital, is nothing new. 2018 marked 50 years since 1968, a year of social upheaval in France and elsewhere. The canonical images from that May feature bright-faced students building barricades, throwing pavestones, and pasting posters in the heart of Paris’ scholarly Latin Quarter. Their youthful exuberance contrasts with the dour orderly rows of riot police. But more recent episodes have lacked the same social impact, and haven’t led to calls to rein in police power.
