Sylvester Stalom
The prefect of police Laurent Nuñez indicated on Saturday that the dismantling of the BRAV-M, a unit implicated recently in several cases of police violence within the framework of the demonstrations against the pension reform, is “obviously not at the agenda”.
“The behavior of a few individuals should not cast opprobrium on an entire unit which, in recent years, and particularly at this time, has proven its usefulness,” the prefect told France Info.
The BRAV-M are police units circulating on motorcycles to ensure the maintenance of order during demonstrations in Paris, being more mobile than the CRS companies or the mobile gendarmes. Their mission is to contact the thugs to stop the damage and challenge them.
They are nevertheless decried for their methods of muscular intervention and are under several legal investigations for violence against demonstrators.
On Friday evening, the prefect of police announced that he had seized the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) after the broadcast of an audio recording, obtained by Le Monde and Loopsider, in which we hear police officers, presented as members of the BRAV-M, making insulting and humiliating remarks towards seven young demonstrators whom they had just arrested.
Two judicial investigations were opened this week and entrusted to the IGPN following two complaints against BRAV-M police officers.
The first was filed by a woman who was beaten with a truncheon on Monday evening by a helmeted police officer, when she seemed motionless, stuck against a wall with other people in the Châtelet district, according to a video posting on social networks.
The second concerns the punch struck by a police officer in the face of a demonstrator the same evening, captured by a video widely relayed on the internet.
Several deputies from France Insoumise called this week for the dissolution of the BRAV-M.
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