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I know Europe is usually seen by some as a "version that works" of the US And in some ways, it’s the case But regarding police violence, the images I’m seeing since a couple of days are *exactly the same* than the ones I’m used to see in France 1/16Permalink
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In France, guns is not an issue. So you can rule this out of the equation. In an almost exact replica of what’s going on in the US, what plagues the French police is the conjonction of all those elements: 2/Permalink
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- Systemic racism - Police’s culture - A small but vocal openly racist minority among cops - The total inaction of politicians, especially liberals 3/Permalink
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Let’s start with the systemic racism In the US, it’s first and foremost (but not exclusively) directed against Black Americans. In France, it’s against black people as well, but mostly against people with a North African ascent. 4/Permalink
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In both case, a difficult and never fully resolved history is at play: slavery and civil rights in the US, colonization and the civil war in Algeria in France 5/Permalink
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Abuses against non-white people take place in staggering numbers in France They are not covered much because they mostly happen in the banlieues where no journalists would dare put a feet on – not because it’s dangerous, but because they and their audience don’t care 6/Permalink
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Let’s move to the police’s culture I am a white male in France, and *every single time* I interact with a cop, I’m sweating French cops are trained to dominate people, not serve them. For what I understand, it’s the same in the US. 7/Permalink
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The French police *brags* about REFUZING to train itself to de-escalation techniques when dealing with protests They call this "the French doctrine" We’re one of the latest European country to have stuck to such an outdated policing framework 8/Permalink
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As a consequence, MANY protests turn violent in France as well, not because of the protesters, but because of the way the police interact with them It somewhat peaked last year when the Yellow Vests fought the police at the bottom of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris 9/
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Now, the small but vocal racist minority among cops Eric Fassin documented it in the French police. Recently, a couple of cops were sanctioned for saying racial slurs to somebody they were arresting. Le Pen’s far right party Rassemblement National performs well among cops 10/Permalink
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Systemic racism don’t need people to be racist to exist. But there’s more than just silent bystanders. In other words: the bad apples theory is probably not completely false But if you don’t remove the bad apples, most of the remaining apples will somehow rot at well 11/Permalink
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This leads to the fourth element: no action by politicians Right-wing politicians doing nothing against police violence is somewhat logical, politically speaking But why are the progressive politicians also so reluctant to enact changes? 12/Permalink
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In France, former liberal president Hollande did nothing. Macron, less liberal but still liberal-leaning, is doing nothing. In the US, many liberal cities and states also have violent and abusive polices forces 13/Permalink
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In France, the answer is clear: unions It’s documented that the reason why no left-leaning politicians act to reform the police is because they fear them 14/Permalink
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This is an odd thing to say for someone like me who is a supporter of workers’ rights, but in the case of the police, at least in France and probably in the US as well, unions is a major part of the problem 15/Permalink
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At the end, I really hope what’s going on in the US will turn into a positive change In France, the problem hasn’t been addressed enough, and is still not solved #BlackLivesMatter 16/Permalink
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Mood +1 🙂