Comment by pmezard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmezard | Hacker News Reader

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French here. I have no intention to downplay the reported behaviour, just to give some perspective.

First, the military vs police comments sound a bit off to me. Technically, the most incriminated force, CRS, are part of the "gendarmerie nationale" which is a branch of French military. But the comparison stops here, for all purpose they are trained and behave like a police force, only one dedicated to handle riots. Which puts them more than other in a position to commit abuses, hence the focus on them.

In the recent years, there has been a tendency to equip them more and more like terminators with body armors and weapons like rubber bullets, tasers and the like. It is not well perceived and subject to continuous debate. But they have nowhere near the level or weaponization of US police force (almost typed "military" there, that is telling).

What Amnesty International reports here is known, it makes the headlines all the time in national newspapers, and a lot of people (me included) are not happy at all about it. There are ongoing inquiries and CRS and police in general do not have the same level of immunity as in the US, even though more scrutiny is always welcome.

Finally, keep in mind the level of violence in France is not comparable to the US. Every report you may see about it should be read relatively to what we are used to. From a different viewpoint, two policemen have been attacked and severely beaten two days ago. This is a national news, something exceptional, making again headlines on "Le Monde" (probably the major French newspaper) since then.

But sure, maybe caused by terrorism and black blocs, the level of violence in police response has increased. This is a major issue and a big topic, not something ignored. And it should not be.

CRS and traditional police forces specialized in protest and riot have been accused of many abuse. But the biggest part of the abuses came from police forces that is not specialized in protest and riot, mainly from the Brigade anticriminalité known to be super violent.

Because the protest were large and long, because of budget cut before, and because the state wanted to hit hard, they chose to put use many of those violent and not properly trained police forces

On the top of that they've been (illegal) order given to the police force to hit hard (newspaper le monde published this news)

Furthermore, the state was dependent on police, and police was already unhappy (wanted more money, pay rise...), that partly explain why those abuse continued to happen during months, without political or judicial reaction...

Actually, CRS are part of the Police Nationale, not of the Gendarmerie Nationale. They are civilians, not military.

> Forces civiles, contrairement aux gendarmes mobiles avec lesquels ils sont souvent confondus

(wikipedia.fr)

You are correct and I was wrong. I learnt something today, thanks.

I've been in some major cities (e.g. London & Liverpool & Manchester, Madrid Barcelona, a bit everywhere in France excluding Marseille, Sydney & Melbourne, everywhere in Germany, Budapest, Prague, Rome & Milan, Amsterdam, etc...) and while walking around during the night I felt everywhere most of the time OK, but the only place where I definitely never felt OK was Paris (very bad general feeling + I didn't like the people I crossed + twice me and my ex girlfriend were harassed by some people) => maybe most of these problems that refer to "France" are actually mainly focusing on "Paris"? Just asking, thx :)

My impression was always that the level of violence in French protests was in general much higher than in the US (see gilets jaunes).

I am in no position to judge, I have not participated to protests either in France or in the US. So everything I will say is only about perception from media reports or what I saw in my medium/smallish-sized city (Brest)

I feel the level of violence of gilets jaunes has been overreported by international medias, or maybe misattributed. I believe the large majority of protesters have been angry, determined people but overall pacific ones. And the reported violence came from a small minority, who abused the opportunity. And the same thing happened in the US months ago when there were reports of looting and degradation. Maybe I am naive and manipulated by medias, who knows.

But you are probably right, in the sense that gilets jaunes organized blockade of infrastructure, and were generally very active, trying to be heard. Much more than in recent US protests. But I would not call that "violence".

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