Tense exchanges. Gérald Darmanin again pointed to the responsibility of the ultra-left in the violence during the demonstrations against Nupes deputies, one of whom called him a “minister of the truncheon”. The exchanges quickly turned into a dialogue of the deaf this Wednesday at the National Assembly.
The Minister of the Interior was invited to explain himself to the deputies of the Law Commission on the use of force by the police and the gendarmes during the demonstrations against the pension reform or during the clashes in Sainte-Soline ( Two Sevres). He began his hearing, regularly disturbed by off-microphone interventions from parliamentarians, with a long presentation, projecting several slides behind him.
Figures on seized weapons, photos of attacks on public buildings, videos of police officers taken to task: all evidence of “extreme violence against the police”, according to the minister, citing examples of recent clashes in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lorient and Dijon.
It’s “a Paris Match hearing, the weight of the words, the shock of the photos”, denounced the socialist deputy Benjamin Lucas, mocking “a nice McKinsey-style PowerPoint”, the consulting firm at the heart of several investigations concerning the presidential campaigns of Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and in 2022.
Gérald Darmanin also revealed several excerpts from territorial intelligence notes from recent weeks attesting to a “very strong mobilization of the ultra-left” who had come to “infiltrate the social movement and take over its leadership”. “If I was being provocative, I would say they wanted to take (him) hostage,” he said. In total, since March 16 and the start of tensions in the demonstrations after the government’s recourse to Article 49.3 to have the pension reform adopted, 1,851 people have been arrested, 299 attacks against public institutions (prefectures, under -prefectures, town halls, departmental councils, etc.) and 132 attacks on parliamentary offices have been recorded, he listed.
“Major damage” was also reported, including 2,500 street fires, 58 vehicles and 13 buildings burned. In Sainte-Soline, where 8,000 people demonstrated on March 25 against a water reserve for agricultural irrigation, Gérald Darmanin castigated a “Europeanization of violence” with the presence of members of the ultra-left from Switzerland, from Germany and Italy.
Unsurprisingly, the Minister of the Interior again gave his support to the police, despite criticism from the Defender of Rights, the Council of Europe or the UN Special Rapporteur on Defenders of the environment, Michel Forst. “The police and gendarmes only respond to people who are violent. They are never the ones who would go to the streets in Sainte-Soline first, find people in a field and attack them,” he pleaded.
In Sainte-Soline, 47 gendarmes were injured, according to the authorities. Organizers reported 200 injured protesters, 40 of them seriously. The vital prognosis of one of them was still engaged on Tuesday, according to the public prosecutor of Rennes.
MP LFI Clémence Guetté, present in Sainte-Soline, spoke of a “human disaster”, a “repression whatever the cost”, recalling the 5,000 tear gas canisters launched by the gendarmes. “Chaos fell indiscriminately on all the demonstrators, most of whom came quietly and with their families,” she said.
Socialist MP Roger Vicot denounced an “evolution of the doctrine of use” of force since the use of 49.3 and the “feeling that you no longer control your police”, fearing a drift towards “a safe republic” . The heaviest charge came from the Insoumis Thomas Portes, who called Gérald Darmanin “minister of the truncheon”.
“Will it take a new Malik Oussekine to finally bring you to your senses? he asked, referring to a young protester killed on the sidelines of a demonstration in 1986.
Criticizing his outing on “far left intellectual terrorism”, PS MP Benjamin Lucas noted that “words have meaning”. His Nupes colleague Cécile Untermaier (PS) quipped in conclusion: “Has a competition been opened to see who would most often pronounce the word ultraleft? »
