French police nearing the end of their tether

The killing of four officers in the headquarters of the Police Nationale in Paris by a disgruntled employee armed with a ceramic knife highlights the sense of crisis that has gripped France’s security services in recent months.

The assailant, aged 45, was shot dead by an officer who was himself wounded in the attack. The officer and a close colleague were later seen by witnesses to be in tears. Another witness was reported to have said that the entire building looked to be in a state of panic.

President Macron, prime minister Edouard Philippe and interior minister Christophe Castaner all rushed to the scene – the French equivalent of Scotland Yard – located on the Île de la Cité, almost next door to Notre Dame Cathedral. Paris’s mayor, Anne Hildalgo, was also quick to pay her respects. All four will be asking themselves what they can do to placate a force that in addition to combating deadly attacks by Islamist terrorists in recent years has also had to deal each weekend with a sequence of violent demonstrations by the anti-government gilets-jaunes.

Just 24 hours before the knifeman, a trusted employee who had worked in the police intelligence gathering department for 20 years, ran amok, thousands of officers had staged a Day of Rage in central Paris, marching through the capital to protest against the long hours they are forced to work, as well as low pay and the threat of a reduction in the size of their pensions.

Among the more startling facts revealed in advance of the protest was that more than 50 of their colleagues across France had committed suicide in the first nine months of this year.

The police, it would seem, are close to the end of their tether. Many in the last year have had to work more than 60 hours a week, when 35 hours is the civilian norm. Family life has become difficult, even impossible, for many. At the same time, because of the robust nature of their response to the gilets-jaunes – a response demanded of them by Macron and Castaner – their reputation among ordinary citizens has slumped. They are seen by the Left in particular as tools of the Government, protecting ministers and others in high places from the rightful wrath of the people.

Police numbers are high in France. In addition to the 150,000 officers serving with the Police Nationale (formerly the Sûreté) there are around 100,000 full-time Gendarmes, trained as soldiers, who patrol rural areas of the country but also fulfill a variety of specialist roles, including riot control. In the UK, by comparison, there are at present just 126,000 male and female officers. But in a country no longer entirely at ease with itself, in part due to the high rate of Muslim immgration, but also because of high unemployment and chronic economic uncertainty, flashpoints seem to occur with ever greater frequency.

The gilets-jaunes protests, which began last November and continued in towns and cities across the nation for five months, required that the police be equipped and ready each and every weekend to deal with angry demonstrators who hurled paving stones at the uniformed ranks of officers standing in their path and left a trail of broken windows and burned out cars in their wake.

In one notorious incident, a heavyweight boxer set upon a young officer in Paris, beating him severely and then kicking him as he lay on the ground while protestors roared their approval. Many other officers were injured during the protests. By the arrival of the spring, the entire force was exhausted and in a state of incipient rebellion.

Today, with the gilets-jaunes preparing for another winter of discontent, the prospect is for more of the same, giving rise to acute dissatisfaction and anxiety within the ranks.

Yesterday’s horrific attack in Paris will have done something to restore sympathy for the police. Yet there will also be questions asked. How could one man wreak so much havoc in what might reasonably be thought of as one of the most secure buildings in France? And why were there reports of officers breaking down and panicking? Interior minister Castaner, brought in by Macron precisely to stiffen the force’s backbone and to sort out its problems, will be among those asking the questions. But he will also be the one expected to come up with the answers.

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