World Cup 2022 Police Violence Trial Paris Champs-Élysées

On December 10, 2022, Morocco and France’s qualification for the World Cup semi-finals draws a huge crowd to the Champs-Élysées. While the atmosphere remains generally festive, the evening is nonetheless marked by around a hundred arrests in the capital. It is while investigating a flash-ball shooting reported by a citizen that the IGPN reviews the city’s cameras and discovers, by chance, the aggressive behavior of four plainclothes officers, helmeted and wearing an armband.

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The images reveal four distinct scenes of violence near rue François-Ier, reveals Le Parisien. Without any apparent justification, a pedestrian with an athletic appearance suffers a baton blow and a kick, while another young man is the victim of a leg sweep before being pushed in the back. Further along in a traffic jam, an individual who climbed down from a vehicle roof has his balaclava torn off and is sprayed with tear gas, while another passenger is brutally thrown to the ground.

Another sequence shows a man attempting to flag down a police car to point out these officers. He immediately receives a tear gas canister spray and a kick that leave him prostrate in a fetal position on the pavement, under the completely passive gaze of law enforcement before a resident helps him. His lawyer, Me Gabriel Chiche, specifies that the victim tried in vain to file a complaint twice the next day, before finally being found by the police watchdog.

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The accused, aged 32 to 49 and assigned to the night anti-crime unit of the eighth arrondissement, initially claimed their actions were necessary to ensure their physical integrity. The lawyer for three of them, Me Laurent-Franck Liénard, concedes a disproportionate use of force acknowledged by his clients, dictated according to him by a strong sense of weariness in the face of excesses. One of these officers will also have to answer for violence and falsification of a police report at a next hearing scheduled for June.