French police breakup of immigrant squat brings storm of protest

Gardian ^ | 2 Aug 10 | Lizzy Davies

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Footage of French police using apparently excessive force while breaking up an immigrant squat has prompted outrage as activists and intellectuals accuse Nicolas Sarkozy of pursuing policies that target the vulnerable while giving free reign to the police.

The video, filmed by a member of the social housing charity Droit au Logement (DAL), shows officers roughly handling women and children as they break up a group of 150 squatters who were evicted from a tower block in La Courneuve, north-east of Paris.

At one point, a woman is shown being pulled by her legs across the ground, her baby – which she had been carrying on her back – dragged along the concrete after her.

The Seine-Saint-Denis police department insisted the level of violence was not extreme. "The operation was carried out within the rules," it said. The squatters had been ordered to leave the premises three times and the expulsion had taken place "in relatively good conditions".

But the footage, captured on 21 July and viewed more than 500,000 times on the internet, aroused strong condemnation by viewers and activists. Jean-Baptiste Ayrault, spokesman for the DAL, demanded an investigation.

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'Sarkozy of pursuing policies that target the vulnerable while giving free reign to the police'. OK, that does it. I could pretend to ignore the creative spelling of some of our duller Freepers, but an international story in English?

I don't know - they used the Latin derivative for Kingship (reign), as opposed to 'rein', which when used as a reference to "bond check" or an implement used to control a horse actually sounds less appropriate in that context as opposed to Kingship. But what do I know? I majored in Engineering, not English.

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The spelling “reign” in this expression is an example of the triumph of folk etymology over origin. The expression to give free rein to is figurative. It means to give a person freedom to act on his own authority. It derives from an equestrian term: free rein – a rein held loosely to allow a horse free motion; the freedom that this gives a horse. (OED) The word rein derives from a word meaning “a bond, check” from a verb meaning “to hold back. It’s related to retain. The word reign derives from a Latin word for kingship. To reign means to exercise the power of a king. The sense of this “reign” has become conflated with the expression “to give free rein to.”

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Exactly what do you expect to happen when you fall limp on a sidewalk when the police to tell you to leave? Of course they’re going to get drug. I’d expect as much if I pulled some of this nonsense, myself.

Exactly. That is why they threw the preggers mom and the infant wearing the diaper into the mix.

I saw the police taking their time trying to untangle these howling people, and I had sympathy for the French cops, not the squatters. I hated to see the kid on the ground, but that was their parents (and this advocacy group's) doing.

Here is a question: what about the group leader filming all of this? He couldn't help the kid? Where is his culpability?

[CaspersGh0sts]

“It is unfortunate that you don’t read french”

I do read French. And speak it fluently. The news reports I read (including some British reports) made no mention of such.

As for the “barbarity” of the events, perhaps I’m jaded in my studies of early and medieval history, but I’m hardly revolted by it. I see far worse on Broadway on a Saturday night with the local drunk.

The only revolting thing I see arethe mothers who put their children in harm’s way like this. The police were obviously taking people away. The easy thing to do would, of course, be to get up, carry your child to safety, and proceed with life.

Or perhaps you could do what they did and just fall prostrate to the ground, forcing someone else to either leave you alone despite having the legal authority and duty to do such, or to drag yourself and your child across the concrete. Really, it’s not a difficult decision if you care for your child.