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I know it’s a time of anger and grief But I’d like to provide a bit of hope Last year, Yellow Vests protested in France for months At first, they were in roundabouts protesting a new carbon tax. But then it escalated and turned into this:Permalink
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What happened? Two words: police violence The police slowly escalated the protests for weeks, until it blew up and lead to this And in case you don’t know, the Arc de Triomphe is only a few hundreds of meters away from L’Élysée Palace where présidents sitPermalink
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The Yellow Vests movement continued for months after this, and police brutality was in full display during the whole time Police even attacked unrelated peaceful protesters *in a hospital* Of course the police lied about this, and about many similar eventsPermalink
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The (deeply incompetent and weak imo) liberal Minister of the Interior @CCastaner defended the police, using the "a few bad apples" bs Police violence in France is common, and usually targeted against left-leaning protesters and non-white, poor people (what a pattern huh?)Permalink
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Some people ring the bell for years, but very few were hearing Until the Yellow Vests Police violence was such in a full, public display all over France for months than not paying attention was not an option anymore
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Major media outlets like Le Monde started to cover these violences Was it enough? No. And they were super late to cover it. But they finally did it.Permalink
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I can’t prove it, but I have the feeling that much more French people are now aware that *there is a problem with the police*, especially liberals I, myself, discovered the scale of the problem during this period It was a sort of collective wake up callPermalink
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One year later, though, the problem is still here. Why? Because there is no silver bullet to solve it. But it’s now part of the mainstream conversation. It wasn’t the case before. And what I’m noticing in the US is currently a similar pattern.Permalink
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Tons of images of police brutality, directed toward peaceful protesters and journalists People usually not targeted by the police starting to get mad at this and to ask for a changePermalink
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Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I would like to think it will just take a bit of time to translate these images and how they changed perceptions into actual political action The downside is that both French and US politics’are deeply brokenPermalink
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But at the very least, police brutality is now more largely on the radar and will be, I hope, more largely discussed - and, for us scholars and researchers, studied Many countries turned their police forces into forces of good, so why not in France and the US? #BlackLivesMatterPermalink
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One thing I forgot to add: the French Yellow Vests police violence were broadcasted via social media They sure have their (well documented) downsides, but social media are a powerful tool for accountabilityPermalink
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And the exact same thing is happening with the current police riots in the US: police brutality is first and foremost publicized on social mediaPermalink
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