France’s Police Unions Are Gaining Power — and They’re Denouncing the Left
Recent years have seen growing calls for more accountable law enforcement in France — and an intense backlash from police unions. As the country votes in parliamentary elections, police leaders are openly refusing to accept the Left’s legitimacy.
A member of the Municipal Police stands during the inauguration of the Saint-Germain Festival, in Verson, northwestern France, on May 22, 2022. (Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP via Getty Images)
“There will be immense protests within the Police Nationale,” Yves Lefebvre told Jacobin. “I said that I will never obey Jean-Luc Mélenchon. France would be set on fire, but this time it would pit the Police Nationale against the political powers of the day,” said the secretary-general of the interior ministry section of Force Ouvrière, a branch of France’s largest police union.
“Between the plague and cholera, I prefer the plague,” he continued.
I mean having to manage social movements against retirement reform with a government that, whatever else you might say about it, has supported its police since 2017. . . . With Mélenchon, there’ll be no retirement reform, but instead of protesters in the streets against [the reform], there’ll be police protests against the sitting government. And they’d be quasi-insurrectionary.
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