PARIS— French President
Emmanuel Macron will this week announce plans to boost oversight of the police,
a presidential source said on Monday, following repeated allegations of
brutality and racism in the force.
اضافة اعلان
Macron will unveil a
wide-ranging reform of the police in a speech Tuesday capping months of
discussions on how to improve relations between the force and communities as
well as officers' working conditions, said the official, who asked not to be
named.
The trigger for the
consultations was a video showing four white officers beating up an unarmed
black music producer in his Paris studio in November last year.
The attack on Michel
Zecler caused widespread outrage and amplified complaints by French Black Lives
Matter activists about the rough tactics used against minorities, particularly
black and Arab men.
The presidential
source said that Macron's proposals would include creating a mechanism allowing
"independent oversight" of the police.
In the speech to be
delivered Tuesday, Macron would also announce plans to "invest
massively" in the police in return for "radical changes" in how
they protect citizens.
One of the key
criticisms of policing in France is that the country does not have an
independent police watchdog.
The Inspection
Generale de la Police Nationale (IGPN), which currently hears complaints, is
composed mostly of police officers and its head is appointed by the interior
minister, who oversees the police.
Macron's aides said
the new oversight mechanism would be "external" to the IGPN.
In April he suggested
creating a parliamentary delegation to hear complaints.
In June 2020,
thousands of French people took part in the global Black Lives Matter protests
sparked by the death of black American
George Floyd at the hands of US police.
The protesters said
Floyd's death echoed incidents in France, where several people have died or
been seriously injured in custody or while being arrested.
Macron has denied a
problem of institutional racism in the police but admitted to a problem of
racial profiling.
"When you have a
skin color that is not white, you are stopped much more (by police). You are
identified as a problem factor," he told Brut video news portal in
December.
The police complain
that they are overworked and are themselves increasingly coming under attack
from violent demonstrators and crime gangs.
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