Havana, Mar 26 (RHC) Controversy over the police response to protests against pension reform is growing in France after the disclosure of audio with threats to protesters and criticism from a European organization.
In the last hours, audio obtained by media such as the newspaper Le Monde circulated in which members of an elite anti-riot group can be heard threatening young people with being sent to the hospital, in a scenario of growing tension due to mobilizations and strikes in rejection of reform already adopted and without a parliamentary vote.
The day before, the prefect of the Paris Police, Laurent Nunez, announced that he had transferred the case in question to the General Inspectorate of the National Police, an internal control body that had already been summoned by the authority after the disclosure of a video of an officer beating a demonstrator.
I am dismayed, these are serious statements that raise a very serious ethical problem, Nuñez acknowledged to France 5 channel.
The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, expressed concern in a statement about the excessive use of force by French authorities against demonstrators and called on the government to respect the right to protest.
Mijatovic mentioned incidents in which police and gendarmes were targeted by some people; however, she clarified that sporadic violence and other reprehensible acts committed during marches do not justify the excessive use of force by State agents.
This Saturday, the press echoes the denunciation of a railway worker, who during a demonstration on Thursday had suffered the consequences of the throwing of a "decerco" grenade, causing him to lose the sight of one eye.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, on Friday, defended the police and gendarmes in the face of what he described as unacceptable actions of some people, whom he framed as extreme leftists and sowers of chaos.
According to the head of state, the aggressions include stones, Molotov cocktails, and pyrotechnic devices, with more than 400 uniformed officers injured in the last days, most of them during the protests and the night riots on Thursday.
Local marches were called to continue the movement demanding President Emmanuel Macron withdraw the retirement reform. (Source: PL)
