Many, many people walked together in France on Saturday. They were protesting against police being violent. The protests were arranged by people on the left side of politics. In Paris, there were fights happening around the edges of the protest.
Many, many people in France gathered to say they don’t like how the police sometimes use violence. This happened about three months after a young person was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop near Paris. This caused a lot of trouble and anger in Paris and other places for over a week.
In Paris, people of all ages held signs that said things like “Stop police violence,” “Don’t forgive or forget,” and “The law kills.” There was also a statue of justice with its eyes crossed out in red.
The people were especially upset about a law, called article 435-1, that was made in 2017. This law lets the police shoot if someone doesn’t do what they say.
The protest was organized by the radical left, including a group called France Unbowed.
Some unions said about 80,000 people protested all over France, including 15,000 in Paris. But the government said it was about 31,300 people in the whole country, with 9,000 in Paris.
The government said the violence during the protest in Paris was not okay. Some protesters broke away from the main group and caused trouble. They broke a bank window and threw things at a police car stuck in traffic. The police car was attacked with a tool, but a special police unit helped get it free.
Three police officers got a little hurt. A video showed some protesters kicking the car and a police officer showing his gun, but he didn’t shoot.
The Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, said it’s not good to hate the police like this. The police chief in Paris, Laurent Nunez, said three people were arrested for this.
In another city called Lille, a 27-year-old named Mohamed Leknoun marched. His brother Amine was killed in August 2022 because he didn’t do what the police told him to do. This made Mohamed very sad and angry.
“This unfairness hurts families a lot,” he told AFP.
He was very sad that nobody told him if there was any progress in the investigation after the police officer who shot his brother was charged.
The march happened a few days after the IGPN, which checks if police do bad things, shared a yearly report about how police use force.
The report said that in 2022, 38 people died because of what the police did. 22 of them were shot and 13 of those happened because someone didn’t do what the police said.
SOURCE:FRANCE24