"Serious violations of fundamental rights" by the police during police custody. This is denounced by the general controller of places of deprivation of liberty Dominique Simonnot in a letter dated April 17 addressed to the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin. It mocks a "massive use" by the police of "preventive" arrests and custody. "Some agents," she wrote, "had had 'instructions and hierarchical orders to arrest without distinction' any person in one sector or another of the capital."

In his reply dated 2 May, Gérald Darmanin argues that the controller "exceeds her competences, in particular when she denounces 'an instrumentalisation of police custody measures for repressive purposes'".

"There is no such thing as preventive arrests"

From the beginning of the protest against the pension reform, associations, political parties, magistrates and lawyers denounced "preventive arrests" ahead of the demonstrations. On March 21, the Defender of Rights Claire Hédon was also alarmed by these arrests. On several occasions, the prefect of police of Paris Laurent Nuñez has registered against these accusations: "preventive arrests, it does not exist".

In view of the "very many arrests", Dominique Simonnot explains having "urgently ordered visits to certain premises of police custody in Paris". Checks carried out on March 24 and 25 in nine Paris police stations revealed "serious violations of the fundamental rights of those imprisoned," according to the controller.

Illegal procedures?

On the one hand "because of the material conditions of care in certain premises", it reveals, on the other hand because of "the large number of procedures conducted in disregard of the standards and principles governing the police custody procedure, even, in certain situations, in violation of the applicable texts".

It thus denounces "irregularities in the documents relating to the arrest and the indigence of the elements allowing to characterize the offence or the attempted offence in question". "These deficiencies in procedural documents are particularly alarming," she added. "80% of proceedings are closed without further action once the judicial authority has been reviewed, the minority of persons referred ... leaves the court free," notes the controller.

Gérald Darmanin denies

The Minister disputes Dominique Simonnot's reasoning by arguing that the search for evidence to establish individual responsibility during "collective scenes of violence" is "often hindered by defendants experienced in investigative techniques". In his view, the fact that the judicial authority then considers the offences 'as insufficiently serious' does not mean 'in any way an absence of an initial offence'.

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Dominique Simonnot considers that the "instructions given by the prefecture of police and the prosecutor's office of Paris in particular [...] reveal a massive preventive use of deprivation of liberty for the purpose of maintaining public order". For the Comptroller General, "this approach to policing reveals not only an instrumentalization of police custody measures for repressive purposes but also a misuse of the role of the judicial authority whose role [...] is not to guarantee the legal certainty of police measures, a fortiori when they are knowingly taken in breach of the law".

"This is totally false," responded the prefect of police of Paris, Laurent Nuñez, interviewed on Cnews. "I do not pass any instructions to carry out preventive arrests." "I feel insulted, offended, when I hear that," he added, assuring that the only instruction he gave to his staff was to "stop violations".

  • Society
  • Pension reform 2023
  • Custody
  • Retirement
  • Human rights