Mediapart announced having received a report submitted to Gérald Darmanin and Éric Dupond-Moretti in July 2021, which has remained confidential since then, describing “the discrimination that prevails within the police force, whether it is committed or suffered by the officers,” in addition to suggesting ways of reforming the system.
This report was entrusted to Christian Vigouroux, the senior civil servant and ethics officer of the Ministry of the Interior, by Christophe Castaner, the former French Minister of Interior, following the protests of 20,000 people held in Paris in tribute to George Floyd and against police violence and after the racist remarks made by police officers in Rouen. This was a “mission on racist and discriminatory acts and remarks within the police force”, charged with “taking stock of the cases recorded over the last three years, their treatment and transparency vis-à-vis the public,” says Mediapart.
Christian Vigouroux handed over a well-documented study of 160 pages on “the fight against discrimination in the action of the security forces.” This report asks to “name the facts” issuing 54 proposals to “strengthen the relationship of trust” between the police and the population.
The official states that the “low number of reports, and even more so of disciplinary and penal consequences”, should not lead to the issue being ignored, citing racism, sexism, and homophobia in terms of discrimination committed by the internal security forces against the public. He goes on to declare that it is an “underestimated phenomenon” with victims facing difficulty providing proof, which leads to them dropping the case as they are not aware of their rights.
He suggests that the police could “perceive the warning signs of discrimination” on the part of its officers, such as “the abnormal rate of reporting of outrages” or “the repetition of complaints about the same team,” in addition to local elected officials being “present from time to time, as observers, during certain operations” of control carried out by the police and the gendarmerie.
Vigouroux also evokes “internal discrimination within the security forces” and that of which police officers and gendarmes may be victims “simply because of their status.”
“The incidents reported most often concern comments or insults, which frequently show inappropriate humor or remarks made in anger, but which sometimes also reveal worrying prejudices, expressed both towards colleagues and the public,” says the report.
The report also notes that the officials behind these comments, sometimes conveyed through social networks, can be driven by a worrying “group effect.” It also relates racist remarks made between officers, on duty or in police or gendarmerie schools, comments about “women” causing more road accidents or a spanking inflicted on a student gendarme.
The document is also quite critical of the administrative response to both internal and external discrimination, inviting middle management to report more incidents it was made aware of and “fight against ‘coalitions’ between civil servants or military personnel of the same team to agree on a false version of the facts.” Moreover, it questions “the appropriateness of the disciplinary response in a certain number of cases.”
According to Vigouroux, the bond of trust with the population requires the “firm punishment” of those who are too light on their obligations. Still, the report considers that “the serious ethical breaches observed” remain “limited” and that “one cannot speak, in the police or in the gendarmerie, of a phenomenon of ‘systemic racism or discrimination”.