Nine officers from the French riot police have gone on trial in Paris accused of beating peaceful protesters who were sheltering from teargas during the “gilets jaunes” (yellow vests) anti-government demonstrations in 2018.
The case at Paris’s criminal court is one of the biggest trials over alleged police violence during the unrest in 2018 and 2019, when hundreds of thousands of protesters in fluorescent jackets took to the streets over rising fuel taxes in what morphed into broader anti-government protests against the president, Emmanuel Macron.
The Paris public prosecutor had requested a criminal trial, noting that some riot police officers “armed with batons and shields” had “repeatedly struck non-hostile demonstrators” who were on the ground or “trying to come out with their hands raised”.
The officers are charged with aggravated intentional violence by a person holding public authority. If found guilty they face up to seven years in prison and a €100,000 (£87,000) fine.
The accused are expected to argue that they were operating under extreme stress and “insurrectional” conditions, after hours of being targeted with projectiles by rioters.
The nine officers from the CRS riot police division based in Chalon-sur-Saône are alleged to have entered a Burger King near Paris’s Arc de Triomphe on Saturday 1 December 2018, where non-violent protesters and some journalists had gone to shelter from teargas outside. The restaurant was closed but protesters had forced its doors as they struggled for breath.
The court heard that riot police received an order to evacuate the Burger King as fast as possible. Video evidence shown in court indicated some people put their hands up immediately when police entered to show they were not hostile. But officers kicked or used batons to beat protesters on the body or head, some of whom were on the floor. One person received 27 blows from six different officers. Some protesters were heard screaming: “We’re going to die.”
The court heard that the alleged beatings took place on the third Saturday of the gilets jaunes protests, when more than 5,000 people had demonstrated on the streets of Paris. That day, masked men on the edge of the protests had scrawled anti-Macron graffiti over the Arc de Triomphe and some burst into the monument, smashing up its lower floors before climbing on to the roof.
Cars had been torched and bank frontages set alight as some masked protesters fought running battles with police. There were 318 arrests that day and 263 people injured, including 23 police. It was considered by authorities as “potentially the hardest day in maintaining order and dealing with demonstrators”, the court heard.
Manon, 35, who sheltered in the Burger King with her husband as they vomited after being teargassed, told Le Parisien before the trial opened that the riot police had “hit and hit, it didn’t stop”.
Arié Alimi, a lawyer for two victims, said the case was a big moment in the gilets jaunes movement and illustrated the “brutalisation” of policing.
Laurent-Franck Liénard, defending the officers, said context was important and that day “my clients were faced with hundreds and hundreds of demonstrators with an extraordinary level of violence”.
The officers arrived in court in uniform bearing badges and insignia, which the judge ordered them to remove. They returned in plain white shirts.
Police tactics towards gilets jaunes demonstrators came under scrutiny after official figures showed at least 2,500 protesters were wounded during the unrest, which continued each Saturday for a year. About 1,800 police officers suffered injuries. Activists said 24 protesters lost an eye and five lost a hand because of police weapons.
In December 2019, a CRS officer received a two-month suspended sentence for wilful violence, after he was filmed throwing a paving stone at a protester during gilets jaunes protests earlier that year.
