Forty minutes to convince. The candidates for the presidential election were invited this Wednesday to the “grand oral” of the Alliance union, one of the most important among the police. To kick off the day at the Club de l’Étoile in Paris, the film Bac Nord is shown. “It’s a striking film, crying out for truth. This film is not fiction. Insecurity is not a feeling, but the reality of all police officers, ”says Fabien Vanhemelryck in the prologue. The Secretary General of Alliance regrets that only Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour, Valérie Pécresse and the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin responded favorably to his invitation.
The left preferred to shun the event organized by this union – classified on the right and regularly questioning justice – and participate in the presentation of the report on poor housing presented by the Abbé-Pierre Foundation at the same time. Jean-Luc Mélenchon was not invited by the police. “He calls us ultra-violent and rebels every four mornings. He practices “police bashing” to please his electorate, ”explains Fabien Vanhemelryck. The rebellious candidate
will reply on Twitter in the process, describing the event as “a far-right meeting unworthy of a Republican police”.
Similar speeches and unanimous attacks against Emmanuel Macron
In front of a hundred police officers, the right-wing candidates follow one another at the microphone, without ever crossing paths, to express their support for the profession. “All authority figures are flouted today. The police are on the front line of attacks by terrorists and bosses, ”launches the first Valérie Pécresse. The candidate Les Républicains again proposes to “bring out the Kärcher from the cellar” or the minimum penalties.
Eric Zemmour insists on “immigration, the mother of all battles”. “The subject is not to put more police officers, but to put less delinquency in the street”, says the Reconquest candidate, promising “zero immigration”. In the process, Marine Le Pen details for her part her promise of “great social policy” for the police. “I will be the president of the newfound authority,” she adds.
Discourses and proposals sometimes converge. But a few weeks before the first round, everyone agrees on this point: the failure of the President of the Republic. “You are not supported by the government. Christophe Castaner wanted to kneel down and Emmanuel Macron recently denounced police violence. There is only violence against the police,” says Eric Zemmour. “Government is steeped in the culture of excuses. I do not accept this double game. With me, the “at the same time”, it is over”, also assures Valérie Pécresse.
Darmanin denounces “shock sentences and hollow answers”
If Gérald Darmanin is present this Wednesday, it is to defend the results of the Head of State. “The reality of the police, it is not the big words of braggadocio that will improve it, but pragmatism and the concrete”, insists the Minister of the Interior. “Emmanuel Macron did it, concretely and discreetly, perhaps too discreetly: 10 billion budget increase in five years of the Ministry of the Interior. As in love, actions count more than words.
In a calm voice, the Beauvau tenant then denounces the “shock phrases and hollow answers” of his opponents of the day. “There is no magic wand, delinquency cannot be regulated by decrees or speeches”, he adds, denouncing “the simplistic remarks of the polemicists of the ‘there’s only “”. But otherwise, the exchanges remain very hushed. Even the questions of the police, the same for each speaker, seem already known to the guests. In the Parisian cinema this Wednesday, everyone is in their role, no surprise comes to shake up the scenario.