French Police Officers Sentenced for Racist Harassment of Colleagues

The defendants were putting pressure on their colleagues to get them to leave the service. During the trial, one of the victims said: "they destroyed me, I went through hell." Another victim, of Maghrebi origin, was the target of regular racist insults in a Messenger conversation that brought together the police officers in the service and from which she was excluded.

On Friday, the case was tried and the verdict was handed down. In total, ten police officers appeared, nine of whom for moral harassment and racist insults. The justice system convicted 7 of them to sentences of 6 to 18 months in prison with a ban on practicing the police profession.

The ban is for five years for one of the police officers, two years for two police officers and one year for the other three. Three of the ten defendants were acquitted. The public prosecutor had requested bans on practicing for four of them and up to 18 months suspended sentences, referring to a "collective harassment" on the part of the defendants and describing their behavior as a "machine to exclude that crushes a woman and three men."