French Riots #3: The Cops

Although racist and otherwise stupid (abruti) cops are a problem in France, as in the US and elsewhere, I don't think the problem is worse there than it is here. However, I've noticed that you don't see a lot of minority cops in France, although the Paris police spokesman quoted in lots of riot-related articles, Hugo Mahboubi, is of North African origin. You also don't even see many female cops. So perhaps there's a recruitment issue. The branch of cops with the worst reputation, to my knowledge, is the CRS, who are responsible for crowd control and calming public disturbances. Obviously that's not a job many people want--most people interested in being cops want to investigate crimes--so the ones who get hired to that branch of the police are not exactly the cream of the crop. In the May 1968 revolts people insulted CRS, who usually arrive at scenes in buses, by saying that their initials stood for Car Rempli de Singes, a bus full of monkeys. Lovely. These, of course, are the cops who are now trying to calm the rioting suburban ghettos.

And now, a medley of anecdotes about interactions I or people I know have had with French cops, from which you are invited to reach your own conclusions on what French cops are like:

(1) A French Arab guy I knew at the Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, let's call him Djamel, told me about a manif (public protest/demonstration) he was at in Paris, where a police officer--given the context, it must've been a CRS--asked to see his papers. He presented his driver's license, which had the usual three-inch-tall black "F" printed across it to indicate that he was a French citizen. The cop glanced at the license and then asked to see his passport (this question means "let me check your immigration status"). Djamel pointed out the F on his driver's license and said, "I'm French." The cop said, "Ah oui. Listen, I'm sorry." He handed Djamel's license back and they went their separate ways.

(2) I once called the French equivalent of 911 from a phone booth in Seine-Saint-Denis to report that a man in a car--a white man in a nice car, I should point out--had just called me over to ask for directions and started masturbating when I came over. (What an idiot: I walked to the back of his car, wrote down the license plate number, and continued on my way.) So, I called 911. It automatically picked up and placed me on hold. I was on hold for 17 minutes before I gave up and left. Seems like an odd way to manage one's 911 system, no? Are 17-minute hold times normal, or are they reserved for calls coming in from the ghetto?

(3) In central Paris, 4th arrondissement (wealthy area), I once accompanied a South African tourist to the police station to report that her backpack had been stolen (she didn't speak French, hence my presence). We spent about twenty minutes with a young cop who sat at his typewriter entering all the information (contents of backpack, value, etc.) and joking with us ("And this toothbrush, how much was it worth?"). He then sent out two cops to search trash cans and similar places near where the theft had occurred. That amazed me, and I said so. He gave a shrug of shy pride and said, "Eh bien, on est la police" ("well, we're the police").

(4) Eleven or twelve years ago in Toulouse, I overheard my neighbor (white, poor, total loser) beating up his girlfriend (likewise). A minute later, I heard someone ringing the doorbell and shouting Police, open up! My neighbor opened the door and was instantly subjected to a tirade of righteous insults and threats from the police officer, who had apparently been walking by and overheard the fight. Do you want me to arrest you? Do you want to come with me right now and get locked up? Shut up when I'm talking! You do not have the right to hit her! Shut up! I don't care what she did, you cannot hit a woman! Shut up! Mademoiselle! Are you injured? Do you need help? Would you like to bring charges? (No.) You realize that if you don't bring charges, he will continue to do this? You realize that you are in danger? Alright, since she is not obviously injured and I did not actually see you hit her, I cannot arrest you for this now, but I am putting this on record. Now any time something happens with you, down at the station we know who you are: you're the asshole who hits his girlfriend. Etc. etc. etc.

(5) Also in Toulouse, I was waiting at the bus stop near the university--which is right next to an HLM ghetto called Le Mirail--and I saw a few cops on the footbridge that connected the campus with Le Mirail and the bus stop I was at. As I watched, they stopped every single black male on the footbridge and spent thirty or sixty seconds asking them questions. I have no idea why they were doing this; I would assume they were responding to a report about some incident in which the suspect was a young black man. Still, it looked weird. An African woman I was chatting with and I started playing a game: when we'd see a black guy on the footbridge we'd talk like sports announcers--Will he make it? Is he going to get past them? Oh! He passed that one! That one let him pass! One more cop to go--OH, they GOT him! He almost made it, so close!

(6) At Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when I was 19 I was seeing a friend off, and I asked a little group of cops for directions. This is a mistake, unless you look like a stereotypical tourist (postcards in hand, camera around neck, etc.): before helping you, French police almost always want to see your papers. Vos papiers?? The problem was that, number one, I didn't have my passport on me (a big no-no, in fact I think it's technically illegal for a foreigner), and number two, I actually was an illegal immigrant at the time (which is why I didn't have my passport on me: it showed that I had overstayed my tourist visa). They went at me in the usual aggressive way--You realize we could arrest you, we could take you to the station right now! You realize you have to carry your passport at all times!--and I pleaded ignorance of this passport-carrying rule and said instead of arresting me they could drive me home and I would show my passport to them so they could see everything was in order. In other words we were all bluffing each other--they were playing "bad cop/bad cop" (a French variation on the usual cop game), and I was playing "helpless small young American woman please-don't-hurt-me." They let me go, of course, having never had any intention of wasting two hours booking a teenage girl for not having her passport on her.