In this recording, we hear police officers, presented as members of the unit, making insulting and humiliating remarks towards seven young demonstrators whom they had just arrested.
After the broadcast of an audio document in which several Brav-M police officers threaten demonstrators mobilized against the pension reform, Agnès Thibault Lecuivre, head of the IGPN, the police denounced this Sunday on BFMTV “comments unacceptable”.
“As a citizen, I am extremely shocked by these comments,” she said.
As of Friday evening, an administrative investigation was opened by the police headquarters. For its part, the IGPN launched a judicial inquiry this Saturday to shed light on these incidents.
“Destructive” abuses for the police
“At the IGPN, we do not bury cases”, assures Agnès Thibault Lecuivre, affirming that “the only compass is respect for ethics and rules”. “We are neither in charge nor exculpatory: we are carrying out investigations”.
“These abuses are destructive for the national police institution,” she continues.
She affirms that the IGPN carries out investigations and pronounces sanctions when necessary. “These sanctions cast opprobrium on all the other police services and on each of the police officers in the field who are exemplary,” she concludes.
17 investigations opened
During a demonstration against the pension reform last Monday, a video posted on social networks shows a Brav-M policeman punching an individual, knocking him to the ground.
Asked about these facts, while an investigation has been opened, Agnès Thibault Lecuivre, head of the IGPN, insists on the “need to contextualize”.
“We must not confuse the haste with the rigor of an investigation,” she adds.
Since January 19 and the first day of mobilization against the pension reform, seventeen investigations have been opened by the IGPN for suspicions of police violence on the sidelines of the demonstrations.
