Police in France are performing bare minimum duties or taking sick leave to protest the jailing of one of their colleagues, accused of hurting a “migration-backround” man during recent riots. While cops in France are not permitted to strike, officers are answering calls from unions to “work-to-rule.”
“Why are we working-to-rule? Because a police officer who leaves his house in the morning may also find himself indicted in the afternoon, and then placed in detention by the evening,” said one officer, who gave him name as ‘Olivier’.
Cops are aggrieved that prosecutors have locked up an officer from the anti-crime brigade, accused of shooting a man named Hedi with a riot gun, as well as beating him alongside three others.
Hedi claims he was innocently walking home from work when the officers struck, and not taking part in recent riots over the killing of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old with a lengthy arrest record who was shot after accelerating through a police stop.
“What’s the goal? Apart from humiliating us and letting offenders think that anything is possible?” one officer said of the decision to detain the policeman accused of injuring Hedi.
The riots, which saw criminals openly shooting out surveillance cameras with illegal firearms or even cutting down their masts with power saws, were overwhelmingly comprised of migration-background men and youths, with ‘Mohammed’ being by far the most common name among those arrested during the disorder.