Feeling unloved after weeks of demonstrations, French police are to take to the streets to protest against what they see as hatred directed against the force.
The main unions of the Police Nationale said that officers were exhausted and wanted more respect after becoming the target of insults and abuse in marches and sit-ins against the government’s labour reforms.
More than 300 officers, mainly from the CRS security police, have been injured in clashes with violent anti-capitalist demonstrators in Paris and provincial cities. The police, who are already overworked on anti-terrorist duties, have fought running battles against protesters chanting slogans such as: “Everyone hates the police.”
Jean-Claude Delage, chief of Alliance, the main officers’ union, said: “The police can’t take any more of this. The state must take the measure of the physical and psychological fatigue that the force is suffering from.” The police will use their right to demonstrate on May 18. They do not have the right to strike.
The low morale in the force contrasts with the mood in January last year when the public applauded CRS officers during a march in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo killings. No one could recall such support for a strong-arm force that uses muscle to keep the peace and is often accused of brutality.
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The union wants the government to take a tougher line against demonstrators and against what officers see as an anti-police culture propagated by other unions, students and the left. “It is unacceptable to let people believe that police officers get up in the morning to go and beat up young people so the ground is spattered with blood,” Mr Delage said. “The police force does not have a desire for violence.”
He was referring to posters issued last week by the hard-left General Confederation of Labour, one of the biggest trade unions. One featured a riot policeman standing in a pool of blood, with the word: “Stop!”
While the gendarmerie and the plainclothes judicial police have long enjoyed a degree of public goodwill, the uniformed officers have never been as appreciated. The police were despised during the wartime occupation for collaborating with the Nazis and rounding up thousands of Jews and foreigners for deportation to death camps.
In October 1961, riot police murdered dozens of people in central Paris during a demonstration in support of Algerian rebels fighting French colonial troops.
The helmeted, truncheon-wielding CRS were a sinister symbol of the student revolt of May 1968 when demonstrators taunted them with the chant “CRS-SS”. They have not been helped by footage shot recently in which officers can be seen manhandling and beating peaceful protesters. Videos have included an officer punching a teenager in the head and another kicking a woman in the stomach.