Police in France have been facing more questions over the conduct of officers caught on camera shouting racist abuse at a suspect amid concern the authorities are using emergency laws against marginalised communities.
Two officers have been suspended after they were heard using a slur against Arabs and North Africans during the arrest of a man in a deprived Paris suburb.
Video of the incident, captured and posted on social media, quickly went viral stirring public outrage in the aftermath of recent communal violence which started in Seine-Saint-Denis. Small-scale riots against the French coronavirus lockdown were harshly supressed.
After two French human rights organisations, Ligue des droits de l'Homme (LDH) and SOS Racisme made complaints with the local prosecutor, the witnesses who captured the video have also filed documents alleging victimisation.
According to Le Parisien the two witnesses have been put under pressure by police since the incident on April 26. On several occasions they have noticed police vehicles outside their homes since they uploaded the video.
Lockdown tensions bubble over in Paris suburbs
Mr Arie Alimi, who was present as his clients gave evidence to France’s General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), has insisted that the two men have been intimidated.
“In this case, my clients are indeed victims," he said. “They were scared to death at the time of filming this video, and since then, they have suffered a great deal of anxiety and anxiety.”
The arrest last weekend has renewed focus on France’s banlieues. The high-rise neighbourhoods that ring the country's cities are heavily populated by families of North African and Muslim descent and have for decades been flash points of anger of social and economic marginalisation and police violence.
Police unions says the rundown estates are a tinderbox in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak as tight restrictions on public movement to curb the spread of the disease exacerbate deep-rooted tensions and anger towards the police enforcing the lockdown.
In the video, the two officers mock the suspect, who is accused of a theft from a construction site, after he jumps in the river Seine to escape arrest.
Using a derogatory term they say the man couldn’t swim because of his race. Later one of the officers suggests they should have “tied a weight to his foot”.
The two men were suspended and an investigation launched following the intervention of France’s Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. "A video showing a police intervention in the sector of Ile-Saint-Denis has led to legitimate indignation," Mr Castaner wrote on his Twitter account.
"All light will be shed on the matter. The IGPN has been alerted. Racism has no place in the Republican police force."
Eric Coquerel, a lawmaker from the far-left France Unbowed party who represents Seine-Saint-Denis, expressed horror at the incident.
“To hear in this day and age such words, such behaviour, from police is shameful and a huge concern,” Mr Coquerel said on social media.
In the week before the video was posted online, violent clashes broke out beginning in Seine-Saint-Denis between youths and police spreading to several other deprived areas, as well as other parts of the country, such as Roubaix in the north.
The violence was characterised by individuals shooting fireworks at police officers and in the Hauts-de-Seine area a primary school was damaged after a blaze broke out.
The clashes seemed to erupt when a 30-year-old was injured after slamming into the open door of a police car. Aggrieved residents in the area felt the incident was trivialised after the man broke his leg. An IGPN investigation is ongoing.
The coronavirus outbreak has in Seine-Saint-Denis, where unemployment runs at more than double the national average, has not only exposed the cramp living conditions of inhabitants.
Official data show that the spike in mortality rates during the coronavirus outbreak has been markedly higher in Seine-Saint-Denis than in Paris’ affluent centre.
According to French government figures the district has the lowest number of doctors anywhere in France and the largest rate of chronic diseases such as diabetes that can be major risk factors for Covid-19 victims.
