Protest draws thousands

THOUSANDS of people protested in Paris yesterday in the latest demonstration against alleged racism and violence by the police.

The protest was called by Assa Traore, whose brother Adama, a young black man, died in disputed circumstances after his arrest by gendarmes in 2016 in a town north of Paris. She compared the death of her brother to that of George Floyd in the US.

An estimated 20 000 people defied a police ban to attend a protest she called last week. Thanks to that mobilisation, people now “recognise that there is racism in France, in the French police and in the French gendarmerie,” Traore declared.

The latest protests have rekindled debate in France about racism, but also about police tactics. Security forces were criticied last year for their harsh tactics during often violent demonstrations by the Yellow Vests protest movement.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Monday announced a ban on using chokeholds on suspects and the automatic suspension of officers in case of any “confirmed suspicion” of racist actions or remarks. But that drew a furious response from police, hundreds of whom protested on Thursday around the country

Earlier yesterday, French government’s spokeswoman, Sibeth Ndiaye who is of Senegalese orgin, broke a political taboo by calling for the country to consider gathering data on citizens by ethnic origin in order to monitor discrimination.

Ndiaye, warned in a column for newspaper Le Monde that “by not being able to measure and see reality as it is, we are allowing fantasies to prosper”.

French law strictly restricts the collection of data that identifies people’s religion, or racial or ethnic origin. |