In France: a conviction for police brutality, but little expectation of change

When a French police officer was found guilty Friday of assaulting Théo Luhaka, a 22-year-old black man, during a 2017 identity check that led to his arrest, lawyers from both sides left the courthouse claiming victory in one of the most publicized courts of France. cases of police abuse.

Mr Luhaka, now 29, was officially recognized as a victim of police brutality after a seven-year legal ordeal. But the officer received only a one-year suspended sentence and was acquitted of the more serious charge that he had permanently mutilated Mr Luhaka. Neither side appeared to intend to appeal.

On Saturday, residents in Aulnay-sous-Bois, the northeastern Paris suburb where Mr. Luhaka was attacked and where he still lives, said they felt more disillusioned than encouraged. To them, progress in punishing police misconduct felt like the biting winter air: frigid.

“There is a two-tiered legal system,” said Mohamed Djezzar, 29, a computer engineering student. Although the officer and two of his colleagues were convicted, the sentences were too light, Mr Djezzar added. Friends often complain of repeated, Unjustified identity checkshe said, and this case will do little to dispel the deep-seated hostility toward police.

“I was under no illusions,” Mr. Djezzar said, his breath forming misty clouds of condensation in the frigid air. “It is always the same.”

Mr. Djezzar was training in a hilly, snow-covered park, not far from the low-slung concrete apartment buildings that Mr. Luhaka cut through in 2017, when three officers subdued him during an identity check. One of them stabbed a baton at Mr Luhaka's thigh and caused a four-inch tear in his rectum.

The incident sparked several days of rioting, prompted François Hollande, the then French president, who was a Socialist, to visit Mr Luhaka in hospital, and prompted Emmanuel Macron, then a presidential candidate, to promise to create a police force which was better attuned to the situation. local communities.

A preview government report later discovered that much of the looting, arson and vandalism that week was opportunistic. But simmering anger over heavy-handed police tactics in France's poorer urban suburbs, often home to people with immigrant backgrounds, provided the initial spark.

Sébastian Roché, a police expert at France's National Center for Scientific Research, said Mr Luhaka's case was “emblematic” of “ongoing” problems in those suburbs, such as identity checks being a cover for racial profiling, or the disproportionate use of non-lethal but potentially dangerous weapons such as tear gas canisters and rubber bullets.

SOS Racism, one of France's leading anti-discrimination groups, said in a rack on Friday that Mr Luhaka's case should prompt French authorities to “finally open a debate and initiate reforms to ensure this never happens again.”

But Mr Macron, now president, and Gérald Darmanin, his tough-talking interior minister, have shown little appetite for these kinds of changes. French officials have rejected allegations of systemic problems with racism and violence among police.

At a recent press conference, Macron promised that police would clear up notorious drug smuggling spots every week and double the number of police on the streets. But he was less specific about ways to reduce discrimination, focusing instead on measures such as school uniforms and mandatory services for teenagers, which he said would promote national unity.

Police unions have also fought back against attempts to curb aggressive police methods, arguing that officers face increasingly dangerous working conditions in areas where drug trafficking is high.

In 2020, following angry union protests, the government softened key provisions of a proposal to ban chokeholds during arrests following the death of Cédric Chouviat, a delivery worker who was pushed to the ground and put in such a hold.

Linda Kebbab, spokeswoman for Unité SGP Police, one of France's largest police unions, told reporters at the courthouse on Friday that the three officers convicted of assaulting Mr Luhaka could not be blamed for doing “difficult” work in a “very complicated situation”. 'drug trafficking place. As she spoke, anti-police brutality activists tried to drown her out with chants.

“Some want the heads of police officers as trophies,” Ms. Kebbab shot back.

Bruno Pomart, head of an association that organizes police outreach workshops, said French authorities had long been suspicious of a softer approach to local policing. Mr Macron ever mocked the idea that an officer's job was to 'play football with young people'.

“During my 36 years in the force I had a lot of difficulty getting people to agree to this approach,” says Mr. Pomart, a retired police officer who founded the Raid Aventure association in 1992. Police DNA.”

Attitudes have changed somewhat, he said. Every year his group organizes more than 100 workshops, with sports activities, first aid lessons or explanations of police methods, led by volunteer officers in cities throughout France.

But many high-profile lawsuits alleging police misconduct have yet to go to trial — or never will — after years of tortuous investigations, further fueling feelings that the system is rigged against victims of police brutality.

An investigation into the case of Adama Traoré, who died in 2016 after three officers pinned him to the ground during an arrest, closed in September without charges being filed. In the case of Zineb Redouane, an 80-year-old woman who died in 2018 after being hit by a tear gas canister as she closed her windows during a Yellow Vest protest in Marseille, no one has been charged.

Officers have been charged in the case of Michel Zecler, a Black music producer who was beaten by police in 2020 in the vestibule of the building where he has his music studio — but no trial date has been set.

“Every time a case like this occurs, we go backwards,” said Réda Didi, community organizer who heads Grains de Francean association that tries to improve relations with institutions such as the police with writing or theater workshops and conversations with famous athletes.

Last summer, one of the group's programs at a high school in Nanterre, the suburb where Mr. Merzouk was killed, had to be paused for a month because tensions rose too high, he said.

While the pace of institutional change is slow, experts see signs that public opinion is moving a little faster, especially with the ubiquity of video. Mr. Merzouk's shooting and Mr. Luhaka's to arrest were both caught on camera.

Mr Roché, the police expert, said the growing number of cases in recent years – coupled with the rise of small but active interest groups, often around victims' families – has changed what kind of police methods society considers acceptable.

“Public opinion comes first and then the courts,” Mr. Roché said, noting that while convictions of officers accused of misconduct are still unusual, more cases are coming to trial.

By September, five officers were based in Pantin, a northern suburb of Paris found guilty of violent attacks and writing false police reports. This month, a police commander stood trial in Nice for ordering an indictment against the Yellow Vest protesters in 2019. left one protester with a fractured skull.

“There is a tension in every democracy” between civil rights and the rules governing the use of intrusive or violent tools by police, Mr. Roché said. “What's at stake is how you adjust the cursor between the two,” he added. “And that's what these cases highlight.”

In Aulnay-sous-Bois, many felt that the cursor still needed to be adjusted.

Yamina Abdel, 50, said the officer convicted of wounding Mr Luhaka “should have served at least some prison time.” Dressed in a beige winter coat and a giant scarf, she kept her arms moving to stay warm in the bitter cold.

“Wasn't that the case seven years ago?” she added. “It feels like it was yesterday.”