Couldn't find any English sources on this yet but if you speak French you can look at this (or read the statement directly at the bottom of this post)

Translation of the statement (I didn't translate some more throwaway lines but I can add those as well if people want):

NOW THAT'S ENOUGH...

Faced with these savage hordes, asking for calm is not enough, it needs to be imposed!

Reestablishing republican order and preventing the arrested from being able to harm should be the only political signals to be given.

Faced with these demands, the police family must have solidarity.

Our colleagues, like the majority of citizens, can no longer suffer the dictate of these violent minorities. (lol)

The hour isn't for union action, but for the combat against these "pests" Submitting, capitulating, and pleasing them by laying down arms are not solutions seeing the gravity of the situation.

All means necessary must be put in place to restore as quickly as possible the rule of law.

[...]

[...]

Today the Police are in combat because we are at war.

[...]

The national offices of the National Police Alliance and UNSA Police

Screenshot of the full statement in French

Show

  • NoGodsNoMasters [they/them, she/her]
    hexagon
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Tl;dr a 17 year-old of Algerian descent was stopped by the police for some reason, and the driving age is 18 so obviously he doesn't have a valid driver's license (probably makes him "no angel" to the libs or something). Not sure exactly what led to that but anyway one of the cops pulled out a gun and threatened to put a bullet in his head, at which point he tried to drive off and the police officer fatally shot him. Police claimed it was self defence and he tried to run them over or something, but it was caught on video so it was obviously bullshit. The video spread quickly and people got pissed, so there were protests which pretty quickly became rioting and it's just escalated from there. As with any big protest about a specific incident, it's not really about this specific incident, or even necessarily just about the police, and there's definitely a larger context to that to do with tons of stuff and I think especially in the banlieues (means suburb in French but in this case they're usually poorer working class and largely immigrant). I've seen a lot of comparisons to the riots in 2005, but to be honest I don't think I'm familiar enough with this stuff to give a good explanation, I'm not French and while I do kinda follow French politics it's sort of from afar.