Trapped between police and protesters, Macron’s centrist equilibrium law is undone

This has pushed Mr. Macron into an awkward corner. At a recent emergency meeting with Mr. Darmanin, a 38-year-old conservative fire maker, and other senior members of his cabinet, Mr. Macron was smoking.

“The situation you put me in could have been avoided,” Mr Macron, 42, told Mr Darmanin, according to people familiar with the matter. They said Mr. Darmanin did not move.

For years, Mr Macron has ruled as a technocrat, rewriting France’s arcane labor code to restart the economy and trying to fix the European Union’s financial plumbing.

On issues of law and order, including former tensions between police and Muslim minorities living on the outskirts of the country’s working class, Mr. Macron has largely postponed Mr Darmanin and his predecessors in the Interior Ministry.

Mr. Macron’s modus operandi: Stand above the struggle, declaring an opinion with one breath and then saying, “On the other hand …” to the next.

This policy mark, however, is falling apart. Mr Macron’s party and cabinet have drifted to the right, and the president finds that he can no longer avoid the cultural wars that have long torn the seams of French society.

The change became apparent this year, as Mr Macron’s party, Republic on the Move, lost numerous mayoral elections in June, including in Paris. The defections of left-wing legislators followed, costing Mr Macron his absolute majority in Parliament.

Then, in October, the president delivered a speech denouncing what he called “Islamist separatism,” a movement he said aimed to subvert the values ​​of the French Republic, in particular the principle of strict secularism. , known as secularism. Two deadly terrorist attacks followed, including the beheading of a schoolteacher, as well as mosque investigations across the country. Critics of the Muslim world and the international media accused Mr Macron of a right-wing leaning that stigmatized French Muslims.

With left-wing support, Mr Macron sat down for an interview with Brut, a popular news website among young people. Macron defended aspects of Mr. Darmanin’s police protection legislation without saying whether he supported restrictions on posting images of agents online.

“I share the same goal: to protect police officers. What I don’t want is to reduce any of our freedoms to achieve that goal, ”Macron said.

Instead, he offered a technical critique of the provision of the bill, saying he was doing nothing to prevent images of police from being posted from servers in Belgium or Italy.

“Although (the provision) would have been what some wrote about it, at best it was ineffective,” Macron said.

However, while Mr Macron continues to cover his cover, Mr Darmanin is stepping up pressure with the support of a restorative national police force.

Mr. Darmanin’s appointment in July was controversial from the start. Darmanin is being investigated by French prosecutors for allegedly raping a woman in 2009, allegations he denies.

Darmanin was a former member of the Conservative party Les Républicains with a history of beard leadership to Mr. Macron. “Far from being the remedy for a sick country, it will be the ultimate poison,” Darmanin wrote about Macron a few months before his 2017 election.

Following the assassination of George Floyd in the US this spring, tens of thousands took to the streets in France to express outrage over the fate of Mr Floyd and that of a Frenchman of African descent who died in police custody. years before. A report commissioned by the man’s family, Adama Traoré, concluded in June that he probably drowned after police nailed him to the ground.

At the time, Mr Macron commissioned his interior minister – Christophe Castaner, a close lieutenant – to review police practices to address protesters’ concerns, according to French officials. Castaner responded with a plan to ban suffocation remains (which apply pressure to a suspect’s neck) and systematically suspend police officers suspected of racism.

The reaction of the police, who had been working long hours to enforce the closure of Covid-19 in France, was fierce. Police unions denied the allegations of racism and staged a series of counter-protests. Some threw the handcuffs on the ground and demanded the resignation of Mr. Castaner.

Frédéric Veaux, the director of the French national police, wrote a letter to his forces, stating that he felt his frustration with the Macron government. “I share with you this feeling of deep injustice,” Mr. Veaux wrote.

Mr Macron mixed up his government, replacing Mr Castaner with Mr Darmanin, who met with police and blessed his proposal to make it mandatory for people who posted images or videos of police to blur the faces of officers. “I’ll make it mine,” he said.

In October, a group of lawmakers from Macron’s party introduced a new bill in Parliament aimed at improving coordination between national police forces, local police and private security ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Darmanin collaborated with lawmakers to add a provision, section 24, that prohibited the posting of photos and videos of police operations that included “the face or any other identifying element” of police officers for the purpose of making -the “physical or mental” damage. .

In November, thousands of people, including journalists and human rights groups, took to the streets to protest the bill, saying it would prevent people from filming and exposing police brutality. Several journalists covering the protests were attacked by police and at least two of them were detained for several hours, according to journalists ’unions.

On November 27, the French news website Loopsider posted images of a security camera in Michel Zecler’s Paris music studio showing three police officers punching him and hitting him with a baton. . Zecler said one of the officers called him “n gross” in French while beating him, according to Zecler’s lawyer and Paris prosecutors investigating the incident. The video also shows tear gas deployed inside the music studio.

Amid a public uproar over the images, the Macron government announced it would revise Article 24 after it clears the Senate, without saying how. Mr. Darmanin, for his part, sat down for a photo shoot and an interview with Paris Match, the preeminent magazine of French society. The Home Secretary ended up adorning the cover, alongside a quote: “I will not abandon police officers.”

Meanwhile, police unions scoffed at the president for comments he made to Brut about police practices. “It’s true that today, when your skin color isn’t white, they stop you a lot more,” Macron said.

Mr Macron wrote to police union leader Yves Lefebvre to say he planned to hold a large meeting with police unions, mayors and citizens to discuss how to improve police training and resources. “I will be there personally,” he wrote.

Mr. Lefebvre accepted the invitation. Other police unions do not.

Write to Noemie Bisserbe to [email protected] and Stacy Meichtry to [email protected]