‘Far-Left Fascism’ on the Streets Is Bankrupting France, Warns Police Union Chief
The head of a major police union in France has warned that officers are no longer protected by the law and the the country is being run into the ground by street-level “fascism” perpetuated by the far-left.
Following another weekend of mayhem, looting, rioting, and attacks on police, the general secretary of the National Police Commissioners Union (SCPN), Frédéric Lauze, has warned that his officers are becoming exhausted by the persistent protests and that the law needs to be bolstered to support law enforcement and to hold the far-left accountable.
Speaking to paper of record Le Figaro, the union chief said: “We cannot continue like this; we cannot repeat the ‘yellow vests’ of 2018… Seventy thousand police officers have been mobilised again this time. To maintain order, they are sacrificing all their weekends, their family life, their children. It is an immense exhaustion. Every Saturday, they are confronted with violence, looting, raids, and far-left delinquents who burn police officers and vandalise businesses.”
Lauze predicted that the violent movement is likely to continue, given that there are no concrete demands, but rather a general sense of anxiety, upon which the radical left is seeking to foment a permanent the state of violence as typically seen annually on Bastille Day.
“Nowhere else in the world do we see this systematic behaviour. It must be said, France is sick with its far-left fascism. There is a red, street-level fascism that is ruining our country and leading us to bankruptcy,” he said.
According to the Paris Police Prefecture, some 1,193 police officers and gendarmes have been injured during the outbreak of youth unrest in September. The attacks on police appeared to escalate on Halloween, when multiple officers were injured in Molotov cocktail attacks, at least one of which is being investigated as a potential attempted murder case.
“These are indeed attempted murders, and they warrant immediate imprisonment. Today, our police officers are no longer protected by the laws of the Republic,” Lauze said.
According to the Interior Ministry, some 291 demonstrations were recorded across France on Halloween, with around 320,000 people taking part in protests, including 70,000 in Paris. This marked a decline from previous weeks, with 410,000 taking part in demos on October 24th and 550,000 participating in protests and riots on October 17th.
Saturday also saw 779 arrests, with much of the violence being attributed to the “radical ultra-left movement” and their co-belligerents from ethnic minority/migrant communities in France’s multicultural suburbs.
Union chief Lauze said that initiatives such as forcing rioters, or their families in the case of minors, to pay for damages are a positive step, but he argued that laws must be strengthened overall and that prosecutors must take a firm hand in applying justice to create the necessary deterrents against lawlessness.
“We must remove the constitutional obstacles. Our legal system protects widespread impunity. The Republic must defend itself. We have normalised violence as a means of action. But this isn’t romanticism; it gives rise to the law of the street,” he said.
This has been a major talking point for National Rally presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who has vowed to bring back order if elected to the Élysée Palace next Spring.
During her campaign launch in Orléans a week ago, Le Pen said: “We are going to restore the rule of law. Who can say that there is a rule of law when offenders are not punished, when mafias impose their law in the neighbourhoods, when hordes come to loot and burn our buildings in front of unarmed law enforcement officers?”
“Whoever violates the law, and particularly whoever harms firefighters, teachers, or police officers, will have three certainties: the certainty of prosecution, the certainty of the sentence, the certainty of its execution. For foreign offenders: automatic expulsion,” she vowed.
The rolling series of riots is not only taking a toll on law enforcement, with many small business owners expressing fear that they will be forced to shut down permanently if the unrest continues. In addition to the billions suffered already in damages during riots and looting — impacting thousands of shops — the Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI) network has warned that if the demonstrations continue through the Christmas season, businesses could expect to see up to €1.5 billion in losses per weekend.
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