What if the police really protect our kids? The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Hu-Man says about the police force “instituted for the advantage of all, and not for the particular use of those to whom it is entrusted”. Yet, the bad apples will bring their batons, rubber-bullet guns, and grenades upon our existence in the name of the nation. Their patriotism has turned them into robots that can’t even question the power over them.
A US student magazine, the World Mind, called the French police the most violent in Europe. Indeed, it’s the only European country that uses stun grenades on crowds, as UN experts noted on June 15, 2023. On October 5, a 15-year-old student lost his left hand in Lens. The head of the national police suspended the use of the grenade on school protests. Since September, protests led by the students’ movement witnessed that futile violence: more than 7,950 custody placements, including 6,773 minors, about 85% by October 14. It got to the point that parents, teachers, and lawyers in robes stood beside protesters as bodyguards in case the riot police started to play piñata with their children.
So, if French society, embellished by its cult history and a pioneer of human rights and revolutions, makes sense of its police force, then it would be protesting alongside our Youth, and our marginalized communities pushed into the claws of rejection by systemic bigotry. On October 14, the police union, the Alliance Union, filed a criminal complaint against the State, then on the 15th, a gathering in Paris was a sign of protest for more pay and more staff. UN1TÉ spokesman Mickaël Dequin said that the cost-of-living anger resonates within the institution. Students are demanding more teachers and more budget, but those who supported the police on their claims are the same as those who promote more defense budgets and anti-migration policies: Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella support blindly police brutality; Eric Zemmour went on CNews to ask the police to keep beating. Vincent Bolloré owns the channel, and he’s among the top ten richest and famous for his far-right stance.
Then the Marseillaise will be chanted to the planet’s children and not just the fatherland’s. Our youth is tired and frustrated of our inaction, of the way we manipulate and distort facts and protect those who lie bluntly. The system and democracy are rigged wherever we look. On October 18, Emmanuel Macron shared our teenager’s anger and shame over broken shops. He seemingly understood students and promised full transparency over the October 17 gatherings, but the speech is hollow. Prefects ban marches, and the demands for dignity, peace, and equity become threats to the status quo.
Yes, this world of “If” is as utopian as their way of steering the vessel of nationalism and oblivion. We forgot what happened between 1939 and 1945 that gave birth to Pétain’s nationalist State. It also took the Manouchian group, whom the occupier’s poster called the “army of crime”, a phrase that Jordan Bardella borrowed for looters on October 19; we forgot what happened in 1968; we forgot what happened in Algeria; we forgot our colonization and its consequences; we forgot our education, and now our youth is in the streets asking for one.
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