More than 5,000 grenades (tear gas and GM2L) were fired by the gendarmes on Saturday March 25, in Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres. A figure that shows the level of violence of the clashes that took place when the police were instructed to defend access to a mega-basin, a controversial water reserve intended for agricultural irrigation. While we deplore 200 wounded on the demonstrators’ side, one of whom is still between life and death, and 47 wounded on the side of the police, some blame the extreme violence of the ultra-left and others denounce police violence at an unprecedented level.
Keeping demonstrators at a distance, the very graduated response using the use of force only in case of absolute necessity are part of the fundamental principles of the doctrine of maintaining order à la française. On the ground, was it respected?
A proportionate response to the adversary?
Pierre Bernat, observer of police practices in Toulouse, was on site in Sainte-Soline and attests that on the most determined procession of the three, tear gas did not produce any effects. He then reports that the police pairs in quads will quickly and massively resort to GM2L grenades (tear gas but also deafening and classified as intermediate weapons). It is not known how many were used since they were counted with the tear gas canisters.
“It is truly unprecedented to use GM2L on this scale, he believes, after having participated in 150 demonstrations in recent years. In cities, when there are two or three explosions in one minute, it is already exceptional. There, I have videos where we hear one per second exploding. The explosion produces approximately 160 decibels, the sound level produced by an airplane taking off.
“Of course grenades are dangerous, reacts General Bertrand Cavallier, former retired commander of the national training center for the gendarmerie forces in Saint-Astier (Dordogne). But, from the moment the adversary is very well equipped – bottles of acid, Molotov cocktails combined with firecrackers to explode, stones, pétanques, objects with plaster and cement, mixed with bits of sharp metal – , how do you talk about de-escalation? The tear gas clouds could not saturate this open area and it was as a “last resort”, according to him, that the GM2L grenade was used.
“The demonstrators were determined and organized, we are not going to hide it, recognizes Pierre Bernat, but it is unprecedented to maintain order with the GM2L grenade. For me it amounts to the use of weapons of war on the civilian population. Investigations are ongoing into the causes of the most serious injuries. “Normally there is no longer any injurious effect with the GM2L, it no longer releases bits of plastic,” assures General Cavallier. It contains black powder, which is the same product as there is in the fireworks thrown at the gendarmes. »
A necessity for the use of force?
For General Bertrand Cavallier, there is no doubt that the police “have been put in difficulty in the face of these extremist movements. With their assault columns, they concentrated their efforts on one of the segments held by the gendarmes and for 1h30 the tensions were high. It was there that four gendarmerie vehicles were set on fire. Moreover, he is convinced that any isolated gendarme could have been lynched by the crowd at that time.
“Me, I saw gendarmes who were very calm and sure of their systems, moreover there were no reinforcements, reports the observer of police practices. For me it was an assumed strategy to face a block. The crowd was only sensitive to GM2Ls and so they used a maximum of them, in an extremely offensive way. For the general, “all the gradation poses a problem because if it does not work, the higher stage is the firearm” so that the gendarmes, insufficiently equipped according to him, can use their right of self-defense.
In a hurry to guarantee social order and to prevent any installation of ZAD (zone to be defended), the gendarmes have their backs to the basin while the demonstrators go there. “There is a political question, we should have done remote policing rather than a defense zone,” said Pierre Bernat.
Projectile jets that target violent elements?
“The demonstration is prohibited, we see that it degenerates into extreme violence and the warnings are therefore issued, all those who remain, by participating in an undeclared demonstration with the risk of disturbing public order, are in violation”, firmly reminds General Cavalier. Those who, without belonging to an activist group, remain at this time “are in league with the most violent elements”, he adds.
For his part, Pierre Brenat observed jets in the crowd indiscriminately. “The grenades are sent 50 meters in a bell, and many of them have unwanted trajectories or explode badly, he testifies. On extremely mobile groups, throwing grenades that will explode three seconds later is throwing it haphazardly: you don’t know who you’re hitting. »
For General Cavallier, who recalls that he was one of the first to denounce the behavior of certain units, the DARs that became Brav-M, during the “yellow vests” crisis, there are no abuses in the practices . “There is still progress to be made but it is generally regulated. We are no longer under the era of the prefect Lallement. »
“France no longer participates in European exercises to distance demonstrators, deplores Pierre Bernat. We would see this type of policing [à la française] in China, it seems to be unacceptable. An analysis that makes General Cavallier jump, according to which the French model is envied by some of our neighbors, Germans for example. More generally, for him, answers are needed in the “politico-ideological” field and not only in that of security.