Police Brutality???

 

OK, I am doing an experiment on cultural attitudes toward policing. I'm hoping that a US audience will see this and give their opinion.

This was posted by the French @gendarmerie_nationale_officiel with the caption:
The trend gone wrong #humour #gendarmerie #gendarme

 

I've mentioned that I have seen British police beat the crap out of people who resisted arrest.

I am also aware of the cultural differences in policing.

I am curious as to how this would be received by a US audience.

Want to watch people in the US Freak out? PART 2

I saw a clip which featured John Oliver bemoaning the "militarised police" in the US. It made me wonder if he had ever traversed La Manche. Or is he like his insular Amerloque cousins and stuck in a place where police never carry guns, which is actually a myth since British Police are armed. They just aren't armed to the extent of the French. The headline from Le Monde states: 

Urban riots: the use of elite police and gendarmerie units, a "conscious" strategy

BRI, RAID, GIGN... by calling in these intervention units, the Minister of the Interior wanted to make an impact. According to his entourage, this is a choice that has been "assumed and asserted".

I've already mentioned GIGN, Groupe d'intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, which is the internal version of something akin to the US's Delta Force. The other two, the brigade de recherche et d’intervention (BRI) and Recherche, Assistance, Intervention, Dissuasion (RAID) are similar units from the Police Nationale. Since 2009, RAID and the Paris Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI), a separate National Police unit reporting directly into the Paris Police Prefecture (French: Préfecture de police de Paris), have formed a task force called National Police Intervention Force (French: Force d'intervention de la Police nationale) or FIPN. When activated, the task force is headed by the RAID commander.

Renault Sherpa

This is a definite show of force as the Le Monde article points out:

"Show of force

The tone and method are changing. "Systematic intervention instructions have been given to the police", he tweeted on Thursday 29 June. That very morning, as part of the Reinforced Operational Coordination in Conurbations and Territories initiative, an initial decision authorised the gendarmerie's security and intervention platoons to take action in police zones. Then came the decision to deploy elite police and gendarmerie units in the field. According to the minister's entourage, this was a "demonstration of force that was fully assumed and claimed, with a dual operational and psychological objective".

The aim was to regain the initiative by pushing the rioters, far from the usual policing strategy, which theoretically consists of keeping the demonstrators at a distance. RAID and BRI armoured vehicles were deployed as close as possible to the clashes. At the request of the public authorities, three additional vehicles have even been loaned urgently by the manufacturer, Arquus, without the company having had time to repaint their sand-coloured livery, which is more reminiscent of military operations in the Sahel than the urban maze of the housing estates in the Paris region. For its part, the gendarmerie is lining up its brand new 4 × 4 Centaure, behemoths measuring 7.4 metres long and 14.5 tonnes, and instructing its helicopters to take off at 7pm, before nightfall, to fly over sensitive areas and provide information.

I also find that the concepts in Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen de 1789, which was the original constitution of the First French Republic and has remained in spirit in later constitutions, to be very interesting in how they relate to the obligations between the citizen and the government.

Article XII – The guarantee of the rights of man and of the citizen necessitates a public force: this force is thus instituted for the advantage of all and not for the particular utility of those in whom it is trusted.

The concept here is the maintenance of order which is also mentioned in the US Constitution (i.e.: insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence). The US Constitution makes it clear that it has a similar attitude toward insurrection, but the force charged with suppressing insurrections is the Militia (Article I, Section 8, clause 15) which is theoretically closer to the "people" than that of the French system.

There is another post on the difference between US policing and French policing, but I will say that the founders were well aware of the French system. The founders chose to stick with the British system for the most part. But there weren't organised police forces at that time in the British world.

On the other hand, the US Second Amendment has been reinterpreted in such a way that it is removed from its original context. One can arm themselves legally to a level equal to the police: maybe not that of the French Police. Does such an arms race mean that the British system is obsolete and that the police do need to be militarised?

Want to watch people in the US Freak out?

I mentioned in my previous posts on the differences between the French Gendarmerie Nationale and the Police Nationale: the main one is that the Gendarmerie is an internal army--complete with special forces unit, the GIGN.

This headline is pointing out that the Gendarmerie Nationale is deploying its tanks to combat the riots.

Imagine how that would go over in the States!

Although calling Centaure a tank might be a bit of an overstatement. It's more like an armoured car, but it's still far more of a militarised vehicle than a police car. Here's the French Ministry of the Interior's page on it:
https://www.gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr/gendinfo/actualites/2021/centaure-le-nouvel-engin-blinde-de-la-gendarmerie

Soframe, the manufacturer's, webpage for it:
https://soframe.com/us/catalogue/arive-armoured-infantry-vehicle/

The proper name for this is "ARIVE" (for ARmoured Infanty VEhicle). It replaces the véhicule blindé à roues de la Gendarmerie (VBRG) which is a little like the Russian BRDM-2 armored car. Here is the ARIVE in action:

While people in the US might bemoan things like this on their streets--it would probably keep the Kyle Rittenhouses out of the action. 

Especially if an LE sniper would target anyone foolish enough to carry a weapon during a riot.

Fear of a "militarised police" is a cultural issue

I used a picture of a costume Gendarme the last time I did this post on this subject. This time I am using actual material from the French Gendarmerie Nationale. Those who do not understand French can turn on autotranslated English subtitles.

The Maréchaussée, a precursor to the Gendarmerie Nationale dates back to the Middle Ages. Some historians tracing it back to the early 12th century around the commencement of the Hundred Years War.. The Current version of the Gendarmerie dates to when Maréchaussée was organised in 1536, or, formally, the Constabulary and Marshalcy of France (connétablie et maréchaussée de France).  Gens d'Armes (men at arms) is a term used in even older sources. That's why I included "Second Amendment History" as a subject here. The Gendarmerie is a force of the nation for the protection and security of the people. It has been a military force since its inception. This is different from the Anglo-American sense of the police, and military, as being subordinate to the citizenry.

 The basics:

The National Gendarmerie is one of two national law enforcement forces of France, along with the National Police. The Gendarmerie is a branch of the French Armed Forces placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, with additional duties from the Ministry of Armed Forces.

In short, it is an internal army, which is a no-no in Anglo-American, especially American, tradition.

The first video is a short video on the history of the Gendarmerie Nationale:

The next clip requires some explanation since there are two different branches of the Gendarmerie Nationale: the Gendarmerie Départementale and the Gendarmerie Mobile (OK, three if you count the Garde Républicaine).  The next video has more than you ever wanted to know about the organisation of the Gendarmerie Nationale. It does a lot of things.

Now, let's get specific as to the two main groups

The Gendarmerie Départementale is best explained by comparing it to US state police forces. It is in charge of policing small towns and rural areas. The Departmental Gendarmerie carries out the general public order duties in municipalities with a population of up to 20,000 citizens. When that limit is exceeded, the jurisdiction over the municipality is turned over to the National Police. 

The Gendarmerie Mobile is an internal military force organized into the seven regions of the Mobile Gendarmerie (one for each of the seven military regions of metropolitan France, called (Zones de Défense). It comprises 18 Groups (Groupements de Gendarmerie mobile) featuring 109 squadrons for a total of approximately 11,300 personnel.  Its main responsibilities are:

• crowd and riot control
• general security in support of the Departmental Gendarmerie
• military and defense missions
• missions that require large amounts of personnel (Vigipirate counter-terrorism patrols, searches in the countryside...) 

Nearly 20% of the Mobile Gendarmerie squadrons are permanently deployed on a rotational basis in the French overseas territories. Other units deploy occasionally abroad alongside French troops engaged in military operations (OPEX or external operations). 

The Mobile Gendarmerie includes GBGM (Groupement Blindé de la Gendarmerie Nationale), an armored grouping composed of seven squadrons equipped with VXB armoured personnel carriers, better known in the Gendarmerie as VBRG (Véhicule Blindé à Roues de la Gendarmerie, "Gendarmerie armoured wheeled vehicle"). It is based at Versailles-Satory. This unit also specializes in Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense (CBRN) defense.

This system is unlike the US, which has the Posse Comitatus Act  a United States law which limits the powers of the federal government in the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States, France has a professional military which works internally with no issues to that. To some extent, the British also use their military for civil defence. The Militia in the United States, which is now the National Guard, and has the powers to enforce internal order given to it under Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 & 16:

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

The founders' intent was to have a civilian force, instead of a professional military one, to handle the tasks which are delegated to the Gendarmerie Mobile in France. This is due to a cultural difference where the Anglo-American tendency is to dislike large standing military forces. Or as the Virginia Constitution of 1776 states in its Bill of Rights:

Sec. 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

I should add that modern police forces are a new thing in Anglo-American tradition dating back to the early to mid 19th Century. There were night watches and other non-professional forms of law enforcement early on.  Modern policing only began to emerge in the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century, influenced by the British model of policing established in 1829 based on the principles of Sir Robert Peel.

Sir Robert Peel created what is termed an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent in the United Kingdom and other countries such as Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. 

In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. "Policing by consent" indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so.

The first organized, publicly-funded professional full-time police services were established in Boston in 1838, New York in 1844, and Philadelphia in 1854.

As I said, the difference in attitude is based upon cultural differences.