Posted on 11/11/2005 7:48:35 AM PST by Dallas59
Aggressive police making flippant remarks about teenagers' electrocution and a minister who talked of 'scum' are accused of inflaming the violence THE exchange could hardly have been worse for the French police as they strive to allay their reputation as enemy of the ethnic estates.
TF1, the television channel, showed a young Arab in the outskirts of Lyons objecting politely about the insulting manner of an officer who had demanded his identity papers.
“You want me to take you to a transformer?” the officer sneers back, referring to the electricity station where two teenagers were electrocuted while fleeing an identity check. The incident sparked the riots.
“We don’t give a s*** if your estate calms down,” added the officer, using the disrespectful “tu” rather than “vous”. “In fact, the more it gets f****d up the happier we are.”
The episode hardly conveyed the responsible manner for which the Government has been congratulating the hard-pressed forces de l’ordre during the ethnic rioting that broke out in response to the teenagers’ deaths on October 27. It did illustrate the wall of incomprehension that separates the white French police from the inhabitants of the sprawling estates whose young men have gone on the rampage.
From Marseilles in the south to Lille in the north, the kids on the troubled cites say that brutal policing is a big source of their anger. “Casser les keufs” — beating up cops — is what they like doing best, say the young wreckers. “We torch a car and when the keufs turn up, the fun starts,” a teenager said with typical bravado at a northeast Paris estate. The police are hated for their forays into the estates in number to stage aggressive identity checks.
The main target are the body-armoured men of the Compagnies Republicaines de Securite (CRS), the national riot police who have borne the brunt of the violence. “They see us like a rival tribe invading their territory. It’s a test of their manhood to fight us,” said a CRS major as his men entered battle with the boys of the Aulnay-sous-Bois estate last week.
The CRS, who live in barracks and rarely know the neighbourhoods in which they are deployed, have softened their tactics since the days of pitched street battles between demonstrators and phalanxes of baton-wielding officers. In the 1968 student revolt, the demonstrators taunted les flics by chanting “CRS-SS” and then waited for the charge.
Most of the 9,500 riot police and gendarmes deployed this month are being sent out in small patrols, sometimes on foot and carrying their helmets to reduce provocation despite the danger of injury from projectiles. Commanders have drummed into their men the need to avoid excessive force that could lead to injury and provoke even more violence.
There is no doubt, however, that the riots of 2005 have exposed a failure of policing. The roots go back to France’s traditional distrust of state authority and a history of heavy-handed, brutal and sometimes murderous enforcement. Cherished fictional heroes such as Commissaire Maigret are exceptions to the rule that the police are not much respected or admired in France. A distinction can be made for the Gendarmerie, a separate military command, that polices the countryside.
One man in particular is being blamed: Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister. His error, in the view of many mayors and experts, was dismantling the so-called Proximity Police, a scheme for community policing that was launched by the Socialist Government in the late 1990s. Appointed by President Chirac in 2002 with a mandate to crack down on crime, especially in the lawless ethnic estates, M Sarkozy said scarce resources must go to enforcement. “The police are not there to be social workers. They are there to arrest crooks,” he said.
CANDID CONFRONTATION
THIS is an extract of a verbal exchange between police and estate teenagers near Lyons, shown on the TF1 television channel.First a boy addresses a police officer who has demanded the boy’s papers in rough terms — using the disrespectful “tu” instead of a formal “vous” — and told him to “shut your face”
First boy: “You (Vous) tell us to ‘shut your face’ and we haven’t done anything, Monsieur”
Policeman: “You want me to take you into an electricity sub-station?” (where two teenagers were electrocuted)
First boy: “Sorry Monsieur, you are being rude and I haven’t spoken to you, M’sieur”
Policeman: “In that case don’t talk. We’re telling you to get back, so get back”
First boy: “Listen Monsieur, we are using ‘vous’ with you but you and your colleague are using ‘tu’ with us. We are respectful . . .”
A second boy insults a bald policeman, saying: “Good for you, you’ve got cancer, you’re all bald”
Second policeman: “So you want to go and fry with your mates? You want to go into the transformer? Shut your ugly mug, we’re going to give you a going over”
First boy: “If that’s the way it is, do you think that the estate will calm down?”
Third policeman: “We don’t give a shit if the estate calms down or not. Actually, the more it gets f****d up, the happier we are”
Note: It appeared that the polite boy knew that the television camera was there — but the police did not
Sounds like a job for the French Grammar Investigator!
Inspector Tutu!
correct. Let's put on our Sunday school behaviour and please the goddless press.
Of course some of those terrorists burned our troops alive or strung their burning bodies up on bridge abutments to entertain their children...who loved it!
Aggressive police? Good grief. Funny, the cameras caught this stuff, but not the faces of the many violent rioters.
""tu" - from my french class - years ago, "tu" is used when you're familiar with someone, like you friends or family. "Vou" for someone you don't know or a teacher or superior. I don't think "tu" is automatically 'disrespectful'"
It's similar in German. "Du" is familiar, used with friends, family and anyone else that is well-known to you. "Sie" is formal, used respectfully in social situations, both with people unfamiliar to you, and to your "betters." Germans can get quite upset, if you're being overly familiar. It is seen as disrespectful. The French would likely be the same, but less rigidly demanding in every instance.
Guess I'm a just an American redneck: the French show signs of having `nads, and they catch hell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mrsparkle-arteitle.png
"Disrespectful to the 'Religion of Peace'. Can you see we are serious?"
I'm I the only one that sees this as a setup of the Media...these kids are on their very best behavior and they just happen to be caught on camera. Thousands of others are running around throwing fire bombs, but these kids are polite as a Sunday school girl? Sounds like a hit piece to me...and the Muslim Yutes were in on it! Typicaly MSM BS IMHO.
"Sounds like a hit piece to me"
It was obvious entrapment, yes. This will likely enflame the situation further as well. It has a great deal of propaganda value.
In that context, it is indeed automatically disrespectful. "Tu" is used when you're addressing a social inferior, such as a child (even a stranger) or a servant, or to a friend. You say "vous" to anyone who out-ranks you. That's why using "vous" is used when talking to strangers, the way we use "sir."
But I think "tu" is considered correct usage when talking to criminals.
lmao at u guys. U folks crack me up.
Trash talk? Yes. Racism? No.
"U folks crack me up."
How so?
You are entirely correct (except for your spelling of "vous"). One would always refer to an official, elder, parent, teacher, etc. as "vous." Essentially, the cop was acting in an official capacity, representing the state, and should be referred to as "vous." The yute was demanding "equal" treatment when there was no cause for it. It's as silly as Charlie Brown insisting that Miss Oglethorpe refer to him as "Mr. Brown."
Nah you are not the only one. I think we here in the US are just so use to the MSM setting up police and our military to look like bad guys that we expect no less of the French press.
Yes, he's a French Muslim version of Eddie Haskell. Polite with authority figures but a bully and a punk to the defenseless.
Can't help but think of the scene from Holy Grail with the French castle guards:
"I fart in your general direction."
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberry!"
I keep wondering when the French Foreign Legion will be brought in to clean things up! If the jihadstinians think the anit-riot police are "racist" or "disrespectful", they ain't seen nothing yet!
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