Education Minister Pap Ndiaye said on Friday that there were “phenomena” of police violence, “on which the General Inspectorate” of the national police (IGPN) “is looking into”. The Minister was asked about France Inter on the question of whether there was police violence in France, while criticism has multiplied against the use of force deemed excessive against demonstrators opposed to the pension reform.
In 2020, during the Black Lives Matter movement which followed the murder of African-American George Floyd by a white policeman in the United States, Pap Ndiaye, who is a historian, said that it was necessary “also in France to assume this notion of police violence, ”recalled his interviewer. “As a historian, I was talking about police violence,” said the minister, adding: “I currently have other duties. There is the IGPN, I heard the head of the IGPN, I also heard the Minister of the Interior”.
IGPN surveys
In early April, Gérald Darmanin announced that “36 judicial investigations” had been opened by the IGPN, “the police force”, and two by the IGGN (the equivalent for the gendarmes) since the start of the mobilization against the pension reform.
“There are phenomena that the general inspectorate is looking into,” repeated Pap Ndiaye. Asked whether the term police violence bothered him, he replied: “We can call them as we want, but these phenomena do exist”. “Three years ago, I was talking about the United States because we were in the Black Lives Matter movement. I was saying that this question arose in all countries of the world, including in France,” he added.