If you thought Ireland had soft sentencing

riffmongous

Man beaten and left with permanent anal injuries after a police beating.. policeman who inflicted the worst injuries gets 12 month suspended sentence, accomplices 3 month suspended.. if that's what people want when they say they want continental style policing, no thanks

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68034899

igCorcaigh

France, almost worse than America for its racism and police brutality, if not more so. And no justice.

What an awful thing to happen to that poor man :(

NIMAN

Only a sicko would do such an act to another human.

Definitely a policeman with issues. But agree, zero justice.

That’s absolutely horrendous. There’s a grim history of racism by the authorities in France. Much like the Americans, it’s all flags and slogans, like Liberté, Égalité et Fraternité, except when it isn’t. Then it becomes authoritarianism, abuse of power, immunity from prosecution and cover up.

Have a look back at what happened in 1961 in Paris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961

It’s for reasons like this there’s such a poor relationship between police and citizens and there are incidents that would just shock you to the core.

What happened to that man is utterly unacceptable and just despicable. They should have been prosecuted for rape, assault and quite a few other things too.

Hopefully he takes a case to the ECHR.

You can get a good measure a country and the philosophy of a system of government by looking at how it treats people in custody and whether it’s really willing to bring those in power to account before the law.

Strumms

That’s a bit mental.

That said France has a major population and prison overcrowding problem.

The overall occupancy rate in French prison is currently 122.8% and stands at 146.3% in remand prisons.

Not a justification for the overly lenient sentence but I’d say the judge was rather aware too that the cop in question would probably come to really significant harm in there.

Jequ0n

If you are surprised by this article you clearly never had the pleasure of dealing with French police

Quitelife

In this country the criminals are beating up the police and getting away with it - really shows how soft on crime we are !

riffmongous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121642410#Comment_121642410

Did they get you too?

riffmongous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121642343#Comment_121642343

Considering what he did my sympathy would be limited for him

Nothing justifies what happened to that guy. It’s extreme police brutality at its very worst and all that sentence does is show that some people are more equal than others before the law and that the system will cover its tracks.

That leads to a sense of unfairness and a broad sense that there’s a racial and classist element to it and that leads to a never ending cycle of severe social instability, riots and so on.

France has situations that you could understand from a Northern Ireland perspective or from the days of the RIC, only they’re arguably aspects of it are far worse.

A significant element of French society does not trust the police, and their history or interaction with the police and the judicial system gives them good reason not to trust either.

That leads to major problems with instability, rioting and lawlessness.

If the law does things like this, it loses respect and that’s basically the crux of a lot of social problems in urban France and they go back a long way. Respect for systems is earned because people trust those systems, not because they fear authority. Much like the U.S. the response isn’t to build bridges or community policing - it’s the CRS, tear gas, water canon, firing baton rounds etc… and it has never worked. The cycle just repeats and repeats.

tinytobe

I would not trust the French legal system and the French courts. They are dubious to me.

I've never had any issues with the French police, but also, I am white and have an EU passport and speak French as well.

Jequ0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121643118#Comment_121643118

Not like this but definitely got roughed up.