2023-07-03 16:00:00
Wanting to put out a blaze by pouring cans of gasoline into it. Four days after the incarceration of the motorcyclist brigadier responsible for the fatal shooting of the young Nahel M., Alliance and UNSA Police, two of the main police unions, issued an incendiary press release of about twenty lines in reaction to the riots. “Faced with these savage hordes, asking for calm is no longer enough, it must be imposed!”, They wrote, castigating the “dog bed” and the “harmful” of “violent minorities”. Faced with the indignation aroused by the text, especially on the left, the unions reconsidered their statement two hours later, criticizing “the distortion that certain politicians can make”. The episode, astonishing as it is in the current context, provides an extreme example of the tension that has existed between part of the police force and neighborhoods in recent decades.
Difficult, in fact, to sweep these declarations as a simple exit from the road in a profession inserted at nearly 90%. Complex, too, to ignore the content when one of the two organizations, Alliance, has adopted an offensive communication, often very controversial. For the organization, the strategy of excess has worked for more than twenty years. Strengthened by its connections with the right of the political spectrum, the union was able to make itself essential in Beauvau, insisting on a ministerial position very favorable to the police. “From Nicolas Sarkozy, the ministry no longer disavowed its troops, described to L’Express Olivier Cahn, professor of criminal law at the University of Tours and specialist in policing policy. to a court decision”.
Category defense
The death of Nahel, this June 27, provided another illustration of this defense at all costs of the profession. A day after the tragedy, the union vehemently protested the declaration of Emmanuel Macron, who considered “inexplicable, inexcusable”, the death of the young man. “Inconceivable”, thunders Alliance in a press release: “Through (these) remarks, contrary to his declarations that he supports the police, it is inconceivable that the President of the Republic, like certain political leaders, artists or others, flout the separation of powers”. A classic communication for the union. “Alliance is generally in a very corporatist defense of the profession, with finally a relatively weak capacity to question the profession”, analyzes Mathieu Zagrodzki, researcher specialized in internal security.
A difficult questioning, to which is added a clear agenda: the big union machine is ready to do anything to advance its categorical demands. She knows that Beauvau above all does not want to be in trouble with his troops, and that his feverishness has only increased since the yellow vests. Witness the happening carried out by the union in 2018 when, less than a month after the scenes of chaos on the Champs Elysées, the union put pressure on the executive with a slogan: “Close the police stations”.
Alongside two other unions, Unit SGP-FO and Unsa Police, the organization obtains an exceptional bonus of 300 euros in reward for the investment of the police during the yellow vests. The threat works: Alliance has tested it, and found it. Integrated, too, as its June 30 press release seems to suggest. “National Police Alliance and UNSA-Police will take their responsibilities. […] We are at war. Tomorrow, we will be in resistance and the Government will have to be aware of it”. To the excess, add a hint of threat: a cocktail which is only likely to blow on the embers.
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