French national police chief says officers under investigation 'have no place in prison'

PARIS -- France’s national police chief has said that law enforcement officers under investigation shouldn't be jailed like ordinary citizens, amid a walkout by numerous Marseille police over the detention of a colleague for his actions during nationwide riots.

The apparently unprecedented remarks by Frederic Veaux in a weekend interview — which got the support of the Paris police prefect — quickly triggered a debate, and raised fundamental questions about whether French law enforcement is above the law.

“Knowing that (the officer) is in prison stops me from sleeping,” Veaux said in an interview with Le Parisien, after a trip Saturday to Marseille to bring a message of support to police from himself and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. But he went further, saying he thinks that “ahead of an eventual trial, a police officer has no place in prison, even if he may have committed faults or grave error in his work.”

While police officers must account for their actions, “including before justice,” they shouldn't be treated like “criminals and thugs,” Veaux said.

French police are often accused of on-the-job brutality and racism for singling out Black people or those with North African roots for identity checks or detention, while unions say that officers themselves feel maligned.

“No one is above the law,” President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview Monday from New Caledonia, the starting point of his trip in the Indo-Pacific. But he refused to respond directly to Veaux's remarks about jailing law enforcement officers while judicial proceedings are underway.

Pressed for a response, Macron said that “we must respect laws democratically voted and obviously they themselves (police) fall under the law.”

He noted that 28 investigations into police behavior were opened since the riots, which erupted after a police officer shot and killed a young man with North African roots, Nahel M., on June 27 during a traffic control.

Above all, the president praised police in the face of “an unprecedented surge of violence” during the riots, in which 900 law enforcement officers were injured, and said that he understands “the emotions of our officers ... and it must be heard while respecting the state of law for all.”

In a spontaneous move, police officers in Marseille have been calling in sick since the jailing Thursday of a member of the BAC, an elite police squad particularly active in Marseille, known for delinquency and drug dealing. It wasn't known how many police were absent from the job, but the action worried authorities in Paris.

The jailed suspect is under investigation for group violence and using or threatening to use a weapon. Three colleagues also suspected are under strict house arrest. The four are being investigated for allegedly beating up a young man, reportedly of North African origin, at the start of July when the port city was under attack by rioters.

A noted police expert, Sebastian Roche, tweeted his concern about what is at stake.

“Equality before the law is threatened with rupture,” Roche tweeted. “Though it is a cardinal principle of a state of law.”

French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti reiterated in a tweet Monday the president's message that “no one is above the law” and added that the independence of judicial officials is “an indispensable condition for respect of a state of law.”

The interior minister, who is Veaux's boss, has made no comment.