Nine CRS officers were sentenced on Tuesday to suspended prison terms ranging from six to 24 months for beating "yellow vest" protesters in a fast-food restaurant in Paris in 2018.
On 1 December 2018 – the third Saturday of the "Yellow Vest" anti-government protests – police officers used batons and kicked demonstrators who had sought refuge in a Burger King restaurant in Paris.
This episode, which lasted only 2 minutes and 37 seconds, was filmed from various angles by protesters, journalists, and security cameras.
One protester received 27 baton blows, another was left with a bloodied face, and a woman was injured in the arm and still suffers from the trauma.
Four individuals have filed civil suits in this case, but 16 unidentified victims – who have not come forward to the justice system – have also been counted by investigators.
The nine police officers – members at the time of the incident of CRS 43 based in the eastern town of Chalon-sur-Saône, south of Dijon – were all found guilty of intentional violence with several aggravating circumstances, but their convictions were not entered on their criminal records.
Violent social context
On Tuesday, the presiding judge at the Paris criminal court announced suspended prison terms ranging from six to 24 months, saying that the use of force "did not meet the strict and imperative conditions of necessity and proportionality."
None of the accused were present for the verdict.
The court said it had taken into account "the objectively violent social context" and "the extreme difficulty of the intervention," but it dismissed all the justifications to exonerate the defendants, including "necessity," "acting under orders from legitimate authorities," and "self-defense of property."
The judge, on the contrary, emphasised "the nature and seriousness of the acts committed against the demonstrators," who "appeared to be taking refuge" in the fast-food restaurant "to regain their composure" after the air in the street had become unbreathable due to tear gas grenades fired by law enforcement, and "displayed peaceful behavior."
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While the criminal court acknowledged that each of the officers was "fully responsible" for the victims' injuries, it declared itself incompetent to rule on material damages, as their actions were "not separable from their official duties," referring this part of the case to the administrative court.
During their interrogation, the accused admitted to having lacked "lucidity" during the operation in the early evening, carried out after hours of clashes with demonstrators around the Arc de Triomphe, in an "insurrectionary" atmosphere.
In court, they further recounted believing that the people who had entered the fast-food restaurant, which was closed, were looters.
Law is not a luxury
The police officers also expressed feeling "abandoned" by their superiors and directly implicated the Paris police headquarters.
Their commander, called as a witness, harshly criticised the chain of command, arguing that he and others should have been in the dock alongside the riot police. "They have to obey; those who give the orders are never held accountable," he asserted, reproaching his own superiors for not relieving his unit, even though his men hadn't eaten since 6:00 a.m.
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"Disorder never suspends the law; the law is not a luxury reserved for calm days; the law is precisely what must hold firm when everything collapses," prosecutor Marie Dubarry said.
The Yellow Vest protests broke out in 2018, triggered by fuel hikes and the cost of living crisis and the movement mushroomed into a wider protest against President Emmanuel Macron and his pension reform.
Some 212 cases of alleged police brutality have been investigated by the IGPN police oversight body in relation to the protests.
(with AFP)
