Police violence against Muslims in France stems from colonial period

The French police force is trying to subdue Muslims to the republican administration, just as it did during the colonial period, a civil society researcher told Anadolu on Thursday. 

“I believe that police brutality…spreads so much Islamophobia, so much racism which belittles,” said Rayan Freschi, a researcher at the London-based advocacy organization Cageprisoners (CAGE).

Nahel M., a 17-year-old of Algerian descent, was fatally shot at point-blank range during a traffic check on June 27 by a police officer in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Since then, protests have swept across France.

The officer faces a formal investigation for voluntary homicide and has been placed in preliminary detention.

Freschi stressed that the roots of police violence in France should be sought in the country’s colonial history.

“When one looks at French history and the history of its police, it’s important to realize that if we look at the colonial era -- that’s our starting point -- and the function of the police at the time when they were addressing Muslims and colonized individuals, the idea wasn’t just about the function, wasn’t just about peacekeeping or protecting the public order and that’s all.”

Freschi pointed out that “police brutality is the norm…The function of the police when addressing Muslims, Arabs, and Blacks is to submit them to the republic’s rule.”

“For a majority of police officers, their ideology is related, racist and Islamophobic,” he said, pointing out that 60% of French police officers support far-right parties.

“It might be way more, but since the 70s, we’re talking about more than 700 racist crimes committed in force against Arabs, against Blacks, against Muslims, and so on and so forth,” he added.

The protests in Nanterre quickly spread to other cities, including Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, and Marseille.