Faced with the outcry, they plead “moral and physical fatigue”. Identified in an audio recorded without their knowledge, Brav-M police officers had threatened and humiliated seven young people arrested in Paris at the end of March.
During the night of March 20 to 21, their crew, the “Brav Mike 4”, is in operation in the center of Paris. Since the adoption of the pension reform by article 49.3, the streets of the capital are the scene of wild processions with fires of garbage cans and streets obstructed by makeshift barricades.
On the instructions of a police captain, a crew from the Motorized Violent Action Repression Brigade (Brav-M) arrests a group of seven young people suspected of having taken part in the degradations and brings them together. It was at this moment that one of the arrested discreetly recorded the police.
Officers were not suspended
The audio, revealed on March 24 by The world And Loopsider, sparked an outcry and led to the opening of two investigations, administrative and judicial, entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN). Before being heard by the “police of police”, the police officers in question wrote reports to their hierarchy in which they delivered their version of the facts.
According to peacekeeper Yann C., the unit began duty at 10:30 a.m. It is past 11 p.m. when they are recorded. “Physical and moral fatigue was at its highest threshold, forcing us to act well beyond our capacities”, writes Brigadier Benoît A. The officer describes “shifts of 14 hours, even 16 hours” during which ” our basic and vital needs were not met, hydrating and eating was very complicated,” he wrote.
“Some of us, myself included, had to take medication to block their intestinal transit because it was impossible to access and have time to go to the toilet,” he adds.
“At the end”, “more and more tired and irritable”, “on edge”, the policeman Pierre L. recognizes that he did not act “with the usual professionalism”. It is him that we hear throwing at one of the arrested: “Is it the first who has a hard-on who buggers the other? “. The official sees in it “no sexual connotation” but “a verbal cockfight”. He didn’t want to “let the individual feel superior and win this game”. Since the events, the agents concerned are no longer assigned to law enforcement operations, but have not been suspended.