"In France, the police operate like a mafia"

  Valentin Gendrot, 33, is a freelance journalist. Since 2014, he has specialized in infiltration. Gendrot has been undercover with French police for months. There, he discovered violent colleagues and a culture of silence in the French police. Gendrot spent months doing undercover searches with French police. In 2020 he published an investigative book entitled "Bubble" (in German 2022). Recently, a UN committee has just attested to structural racism in the French police. Is the committee right? The German newspaper Die Tageszeitung interviewed the French freelance journalist about the violent behavior of the police in France. Does structural racism in the French police really exist? Valentin Gendront replies: “As a police auxiliary in Paris, I had no knowledge of the strategic documents and the organization of the leading services, so I cannot say anything about structural racism.

But that doesn't mean the police don't have a problem with racism. I worked with 32 policemen, 5 or 6 of them were racist and violent. These people should no longer be police officers in a normal democratic country, but they still are. The police use the word "bastard" when addressing Arab or black children over the age of 13. Young blacks are checked by the police, but young whites are not. » Does the language reflect police behavior and attitudes? To answer this question, Valentin Gendrot told the German newspaper: “In a sense yes. Whenever I have witnessed violence, it has always been directed against minorities. Never against whites or blacks in high social position, who wore a suit and tie. The French journalist believes that the French police function like a mafia: “The French police function like a mafia. Nobody talks, nobody denounces the situation, there is a culture of silence, no transparency. So the five or six violent police stay with the police. And so it can happen that a policeman kills a 17-year-old boy like Nahel M." In another part of this interview, Valentin Gendrot said: "Even if something good or bad happens, the police generally do show solidarity with their colleagues. I think that's partly because it's a tough job. And if you denounce police violence, you are a traitor. The journalist from Die Tageszeitung points out that in Germany it is often criticized that there are no truly independent investigative authorities and that it is always the police who investigate the police. Is this part of the problem in France too? Gendrot replies: “Yes.

In France too, offenses are subject to internal investigations, there are no independent authorities. We have the General Inspectorate of the National Police in France, we call it the "Police de la Police". In Britain it is different. In England there is the Independent Police Complaints Commission and in Scotland the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner. So maybe the English font is cleaner than the French! According to Valentin Gendrot, the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, almost always protects the police. "Even if a policeman does something wrong, like killing or hitting someone, the minister still supports the police," he added. Regarding the high rate of suicide cases among police officers in France, Gendrot says the rate is appallingly high. “Last year, there were 46! The police represent the second occupational group on the list of suicides behind the farmers”, he underlined. Valentin Gendront confirmed that police operations often involve violence: “So there are a lot of injured and dead. Moreover, the image of the good heroic policeman is a caricature of French cinema. If you're a "little" cop, you're not a hero. You're just a poor guy who has to do what other people tell you to do.

And there is another factor: many of the police officers who worked with me were not from Paris. They came from small villages where only white people live. They don't know any Blacks, they don't know any Arabs. I also come from a small village near Rennes, where 2,000 people live, all white. If you then come to a suburb of Paris and have to work there, it's too difficult. In addition, the Parisian police are in bad shape. Dirty police stations, poor facilities. Really not a dream job. Nahel M. is another victim in a long list of immigrant victims. The case of Adama Traoré in 2016, comparable to the death of George Floyd, has become the best known.