Week 5 topic - Police article and general discussion.

Well done in the discussions today. This is a thread for you to write those things that you wanted to say but didn't get a chance to say.

Champigny
No go areas
Drugs problem
Different police Bodies
Community policing
Sarkozy, Macron and governmental promises
Policing by consent
Police suicides
Police training
Other country's systems
ideas for solutions
etc...

Police in France today, for me, is not enough respected. As we saw in the article there are attack against policemen with different types of weapon. The movement of the yellow vest increased this non-respect to the police. I was very angry and revolted when I saw on tv people burning police’s cars, throwing stuff to the policemen it wasn’t a sign of respect. I understand why the rate of suicides increased. They represent the security, and they feel more and more unsecure. It is very sad to hear that a policeman kills himself because of what he lives every day, he can’t handle this even with the training and the crime scene he might have seen. This has to stop!

This article talks about the French police: its system and how it is perceived by the population and the government. It shows us that the French police system is quite unique in Europe.

Firstly, there is a growing gap between the population and the police in recent years. This gap leading to an increase in brutality, by both sides, against deprived people and police officers. We learn that this brutality find its origin in the lack of training of police officers. French recruits have only 8 months of training, compared to 2 years in neighboring countries. They don't have the time to be prepared to deal with any situation. Being a policeman is not an easy job, even less with the current context: yellow jackets, racist violence (especially within the police force), street harassment, health crisis... They are under a lot of stress, and if the mind doesn't keep up, it can become difficult to manage. Proof of this is "deaths by suicide among officers have risen steadily in recent years".

The state designed the police to survey and control the population, and that's the whole problem. Isn't it against the French values of liberty, equality and fraternity? Police violence is mainly directed against deprived people (by the society), so is in United States. As evidenced by the Black Live Matter movement. There is a real society problem that the government avoids handling.

I see the situation as an illness. We have identified its origin, we know how to treat it, but we prefer to alleviate the symptoms with medication rather than operate. The government's only response to the situation is to use force by increasing the number of officers on the streets. Obvusly it didn't work, and it's not the solution. As Macron said, we have to “change the culture, the management and the recruitment of French police” . Time spend and things need to change.

I think it’s too easy to say that Police is problematic or say that French police is violent, it’s a result of constant violence that they experience everyday. They are not respect because as policeman people expect of them that they have always a perfect behavior and if they don’t people think they are all like that. I feel like people have lost the notion of respect against any form of authority.
Police training needs to be longer cause when you arrive in sensitive areas you need to be trained to learn how to react.

The subject of the police is quite touchy. In fact, there is a real duality about this entity and more precisely, the use of its strength. On one hand, police officers have been and still are criticized for being too violent in France, using their weapons on unarmed people (during the yellow vests movement for example). But on the other hand, especially because of this violence, people are protesting and don’t trust the police anymore, and some of them even attack them. The police, who was there to maintain security and peace in the streets, are now enemies to some French people, who argue that they do not deserve their respect anymore. Police officers are then in a tricky situation: they rather inspire fear and hatred when they act violently or disrespect and disdain when they don’t dare to react.

The articles talk about an attack on a police station near Paris in Champagny sur marne. People attack the police station with firework, they break cars with a metal barre and used a small ball as a projectile against the police station to cause damage. It was the 3 time in 2 years that this police station has been targeted. Hopefully this attack cause no injuries but police are the target of a lot of people, 2 days before two police officers in civilian were pulled from their vehicles and shot multiple time with their guns. (the numbers of police officers killed or injured in action increase since 2018). Personally I think this is awful, people are killed just because they did their job, I don't know how this can happened. People need to respect the police, they are here to protect and help the safety of people in this country . Some people see the police like enemy because they grow up with this idea. I think mostly of the officer police are good but some abused of their power and do thing they can't even if they are police officers.

In my opinion, the subject of the police is a rather controversial one. There is more and more distance between the police and the population because of a rise in violence which is only increasing in response to the other side. And, as the article says, perhaps this is due to the lack of training needed to become a police officer. Only 8 months is so little for such a difficult job. I think that extending this training would allow police officers to be trained for the different situations they may face.
Preparing them more would most likely make their work easier and perhaps reduce the number of suicides, which has been increasing steadily in recent years.

From my point of view I agree that respect for the police is paramount in a society if it is to function properly. Non-respect for order can quickly lead to anarchy and violence, and this is what we have seen in recent years in France with the many recent demonstrations of yellow jackets, for example, and the increase in assaults on law enforcement officers.

However, the response to these events has always been repression, and as the article points out, I think that in some cases this is not always the solution. Psychology must have a more important place in the training of law enforcement officers because dialogue is sometimes more effective in resolving a conflict than pure violence... The Anglo-Saxon vision on this subject is also very interesting.

The government must therefore act in this direction in order to have a police force that is both firm and strict towards dangerous criminals but also fair and protective for all citizens, whatever their social origin.

The increase in suicides among police officers is to be deplored. In fact, this represents a 60% increase in suicides in 2020 compared to the previous year. For many cases (according to most suicide letters), it reflects bad management in police teams, a lot of work, pressure and stress on daily basis… There is a real problem in France about the police system. Police blunders, suicides, the degradations, conflicts, multiple assaults from both parties and without reasons, I feel that the role of the police in society is no longer what it should be. Recruitment and training should be reviewed. Recruitment and training should be reviewed as a first step towards change. In any case, the government should be more concerned about this, instead of constantly talking about problems that don't exist…

The police profession is not given enough consideration. It is also a difficult job nowadays. Because when you think about police you think about repression and abuse of authority. Medias make things worse with their reports and images of violence during demonstrations. It only increases the bad image of police officers.
The lack of manpower is a problem. Police officers are overworked, stressed and oppressed.
The government doesn’t have time to properly train new recruits. Police officers are not sufficiently trained to resolve conflicts "peacefully". Police management, training and recrutements needs to be changed.
A policemen is not only there to gives orders and gives tickets, he is also there to protects and raise awareness.

I've recently heard an interview of a man explaining why is "community" was always fighting the policers (sorry I can't remember the name of the community and I couldn't find the video). So they were talking about all the confrontations, the reporter asked the masked man why they are against the police, what the police did ?
His reply shocked me, he said it was because : the police is the "border" between the society and the government, so to force the government to make changes or just to touch them, they use the police as the "scapegoat".
I think it's sooooo unfair and obviously totally useless, I mine, ok it's hard to have an impact to the government but why using the force, why using the fights against police officers ? It's just making things worst.

You know, nowadays, all around the world the policemen are struggling in their job to keep peace and justice in the society. This issue is mostly due to some prejudice that people make of them and this idea also concern the policemen. Indeed, for them, people who are from poor neighbor are mostly dangerous for the society and in the other hand, the poor people think that those men who are suppose to protect them are the bad guys because of their reactions and their violence against them. So in this point, of course there will be a war between those two groups. But the real problem comes from education. If everybody has a correct education since the young age and they are instilled with the right values, the world would be better and we won’t have to face the increasing of the rate of criminality and violence and to the recruitment of policeman issues.
As they say, “youth are the future”, so let's take care of them and teach them the values of life for a better future.

To talk about current events, I would like to draw your attention to a so-called "global security" law whose aim is to prevent the filming of police officers when they are in the field.

This law was tabled by two members of the LREM political group and the government is in favour of it.

It was originally intended to focus only on the municipal police and private security. But, it has since been supplemented to cover police and gendarmerie officers as well. This law has been under discussion since 4 November and the text is due to be debated by the deputies on 17 November.

Those who do not respect this law would be fined 45,000 euros and imprisoned for one year.

Nobody can deny that policemen and gendarmes have a difficult job and I think it's very easy to take a story out of context.

But if this law is ever passed, it could mean that journalists will no longer want to broadcast images of police errors. This law risks making the relationship between police and citizens even more complicated.

Case to follow.

Today in France there is a big problem with the police : the police is not efficient enough.
I think that money is the main reason for that. With the six-month training (which is less expansive than a one-year training of more) to join the police service, policemen do not have sufficient resources. For instance, they don't learn psychology and instead of explaining peacefully sometimes they can act violently. There is a lack of pedagogy in the police and that can create conflicts.
Also, the lack of funding impacts on them because it makes the work hardest for each one of them. So they can be fed up with their working conditions and it is understandable.
It is necessary that the state invest in the police : making trainings for policemen to learn them to better manage conflicts or to extend the duration of the initial training.
Concerning the conflict between the police and young people from suburbs, I think that the problem is so old and persistant that it is going to be complicated to solve it. But for me the first step is to change the mentalities in both sides because for the police banlieue youth means scum, and young people from banlieues systematically hate them. Maybe they could organize discussion sessions to get to one another better and to understand one another better.