AFP news agency reports that the agents have appeared in court today. In the incident that took place last Saturday, 41-year-old music producer Michel Zecler was injured.
Requirement: provisionally fixed
The prosecution demanded in court that three of the four officers should be detained for the time being. He wants to ensure that they have no contact with each other and that they cannot exert any pressure on witnesses. The fourth officer would be the one who threw a canister of tear gas. The prosecution states that he is required to be released under conditions.
The judge has not yet ruled.
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The incident was Saturday last week. Michel Zecler said he walked in the street near his studio without a mask and went inside to escape a fine. The officers chased him and footage shows them assaulting Zecler for minutes.
The four men are suspected of violence with a racist motive and giving false witness statements.
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Yesterday there were several demonstrations in the country against a new ‘general security’ law and against police brutality. More than sixty police officers were injured. More than eighty people have been arrested during the protests and disturbances.
Agents unrecognizable
The demonstrations are directed against the law that forbids identifying officers to be portrayed. This would go against the freedom of the press and falsely provide police officers with anonymity, especially on social media.
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The demonstrations have intensified after images surfaced of the mistreatment of Zecler. President Macron said on Friday that “we should be ashamed” of those images.
‘Structural problem’
According to France correspondent Stefan de Vries, police violence in France is nothing new. “It is a structural problem. The French police is one of the most aggressive in Europe. In the Netherlands, people usually try to de-escalate the situation first, in France the opposite often happens: first beating and kicking, then talking. “
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