Politics and the police
Sam White
Paris This is proving to be a long and exhausting summer. After the students, the farmers, the doctors, the lawyers and the shopkeepers, now the police have taken to the streets and, what is more, are threatening to do so again. Who is now to defend the Republic against its presumed defenders? This is the question many on the Right are savouring as they contemplate what they consider to be the accelerating disintegration of the Socialist regime. For- tunately, however, none of the major leaders of the opposition — Chirac, Barre or Giscard, for example — is prepared to fish in these seditious waters and they were clearly embarrassed that at one point the Figaro newspaper, whose proprietor M Robert Hersant is fighting a private war against the regime, seemed to have been prepared to do so.
There is, it should be pointed out, nothing particularly novel about anti- government police demonstrations in France. They occurred twice under Giscard, and in each case the major reason invoked was alleged government softness towards crime and punishment. Giscard himself had outraged the police and much of public opi- nion early in his term by visiting a prison and shaking hands with some of its inmates. The police themselves are highly unionised with no less than 24 different unions among the 112,000 members of the different categories of the force. Al! these unions have political links, the biggest one representing most of the uniformed branch close to the Left and the smallest one being a plain clothes outfit reputedly dominated by the extreme Right. In view of the multiplici- ty of unions and the rivalry among them it is dangerous for a government to play politics with the police. Unfortunately, as we shall see later, the Socialists in their early days in power did just that.
The recent demonstrations were touched off by the murder of two policemen and the near-fatal wounding of a third, all within two days. They began with abusive cries directed at the Minister of the Interior, M Defferre, and the Minister of Justice, M Badinter, during a ceremony at the Prefec- ture of Police in memory of the two murdered policemen and ended with highly illegal demonstrations outside both these ministries during which the demonstrators ostentatiously fraternised with the CRS guards who were supposed to hold them at a distance.
M Badinter is, of course, a particular target for police rage as the man who did away with the guillotine. There is, however, a difficulty here for the police, for not only has the number of policemen killed dropped since — a happy accident for M Badinter — but virtually all the major op- position figures, including M Chirac, voted for the abolition of the death penalty. As for M Defferre, he began his career as Minister of the Interior by denouncing the police for their methods and attitudes in the past and has ended up as their defender against M Badinter's efforts to cut down some of their more arrogant prerogatives in their relations with the public.
One mistake, however, has dogged him to this day. This was his appointment of the head of the left-inclined police union as his special adviser. It sowed distrust at every level, especially at the top where it offended against all the accepted notions of hierarch- ical discipline. A final contribution to an already fairly chaotic situation was made by President Mitterrand himself a year ago when, after an outbreak of terrorism in Paris, he appointed M Joseph Francheschi as Secretary of State for Security — in other words to have charge of the police who serve under M Defferre. The two men quickly grew to detest each other, and a
state of almost open war now exists bet- ween them. Clearly a ministerial head or two should have fallen as a result of the police demonstrations, which it is now realised should never have been allowed to take place, but this has not happened. In- stead, the Prefect of Police in Paris has resigned, the Chief of Police has been fired, and two police union officials have been removed. Now new police domonstrations are threatened in protest against their dismissal.
Now two other matters have arisen in the wake of the police demonstrations, one purely fortuitous but none the less embar- rassing to the authorities, and the other of a much graver nature. The first is known as l'affaire Knoblespiess, this being the name of a gangster with a long record who began to show some literary talent while held in a top security prison. He was elo- quent in his description of the horrors of life there and equally eloquent in protesting his innocence. He quickly won the attention of left-wing intellectuals, and finally the President granted him a pardon. He was na- stantly lionised and was even photograPhed at a Socialist fete clinking glasses with the Prime Minister M Mauroy. Now less than a year after his release he has been re-arrested while carrying out a hold-up. The other affair concerns two Irishmen and an Irishwoman arrested in Vincennes nine months ago and held as dangerous ter- rorists until their release the other week: The arrests were made by the elite ant' terrorist squad of the Gendarmerie winch' on M Francheschi's advice and much to the chagrin of the police, was placed in chair, at about the same time of all anti-terrorist operations in France as well as of Presider!! Mitterrand's personal security. The result was that the arrest of the three Irish was trumpeted in a special communique i fro,rri_ the Elysee Palace as a major event in tn.! war against international terrorism. 1" quickly became apparent that the three were minor figures in whom the British police displayed little interest, but severe theless there remained the fact that larg, stocks of arms and explosives were fount
that the on their premises. It now turns out
stocks were planted on them by senior .01,_ of- ficers of the elite Gendarmerie squad which also looks after the President's security. The search was first contested by defence, lawyers on the grounds that the accuse,ue were not present, as the law requires, it was made. However, it now appears that this was no mere oversight and that no. t 0.0_ ly were the weapons planted but that junic°1_ officers were required to give false eviden as a matter of military discipline.F°r_ tunately for M Defferre the Gendarmerie comes under the Minister for Defence and not the Minister of the Interior.
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