Faced with social protest, the security escalation of Emmanuel Macron

2023-05-02 05:40:10

Members of the police charge demonstrators during the May 1, 2023 parade, boulevard Voltaire, in Paris. LUCAS BARIOULET FOR “THE WORLD”

In search of signs that the social crisis is running out of steam, Emmanuel Macron slipped, recently in Loir-et-Cher, not having “the feeling of having millions of compatriots who are in the streets today”. Ce 1^is-May, 2.3 million participants, according to the CGT, and 782,000, according to the Ministry of the Interior, pounded the pavement across France, giving International Workers’ Day the air of 13^e day of mobilization against the pension reform, yet promulgated in mid-April. The Ministry of the Interior had mobilized 12,000 police and gendarmes in France, including 5,000 in the capital, to “frame the expression”they say Place Beauvau, of social protest.

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Massive, these demonstrations also gave rise to clouds of tear gas and the throwing of projectiles between black blocks and the police in Paris, Lyon, Nantes or Strasbourg. The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, judged “unacceptable” THE “scenes of violence on the sidelines of the processions”while Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that “extremely violent thugs [étaient] came with one objective: to kill cops and attack other people’s property”. According to a provisional report, 108 police officers and gendarmes were injured, and 291 people arrested in France – on March 23, the Ministry of the Interior had counted more than 500 injured among the police.

At the request of Gérald Darmanin, the prefects authorized the use of drones in six cities in France. A way of “allow the freedom to demonstrate to be exercised”, supported the prefect of police of Paris, Laurent Nuñez. Laurent Berger did not say he was against it “if it helps to secure”while Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT, found a “dangerous slope” in the “safe drift”. In Lyon, a drone made it possible to arrest 33 people who had damaged a business, according to the national police. In Paris, the socialist senator Jérôme Durain carried out an observation mission in BRAV uniform. “I saw a policeman who received a Molotov cocktail, a hammer, stones… But I also saw a guy with a bleeding head, people on the ground, it hits in all directions”relate-t-il. Criticism of facial recognition tools, the elected socialist says he is evolving, “because it’s not all black or all white”.

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“Desire to free oneself from the rule of law”

But in Rouen, on Sunday, the administrative court restricted the authorization of drones to capture images of the parade in Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) due to“a serious and manifestly illegal attack” to freedoms. “There is a desire on the part of the executive to free itself from the rule of law, we love^e Jean-Baptiste Soufron, member of the Association for the Defense of Constitutional Liberties (Adelico), who filed appeals in Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux. We are not asking for a ban on drones, but for the law to be respected. It requires a deliberation of the CNIL [Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés]. In Rennes, the decree was published at 6:26 p.m. for a rally at 6 p.m. In Lyon, the court did not have time to judge. These practices of circumventing the law and civility are new in the field of protest control. Little by little, the executive is claiming the possibility of being independent of the rules of the rule of law. »

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