International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 8

Maintaining Public Order in France: Myths and Realities
victim). And we should not forget Vital Michalon, who died at Creys Malville in
1977, or Remi Fraisse who died at Sivens in 1994.
2018 brought together multiple grievances for the first time, yet without
managing to combine disparate and often contradictory battles.
The maintenance of law and order has therefore been confronted with a
crisis that is unprecedented in nature, although far from surprising for the state.
Indeed, in 1987, the Prefect Massoni organized a very rare and very discreet
feedback session on the events of the previous year. In addition to General Inspector
Berlioz, who was at the forefront of the exercise, other experts participated in a
major reorganization of the system for maintaining law and order.
The Pelotons Voltigeurs Motorisés [Motorized Squads] were abolished—this
had been a temporary unit set up around sports coaches and motorcyclists from the
Prefecture of Police, who operated in pairs on their vehicles, chasing and striking
supposedly violent demonstrators with their “bidules” (long wooden truncheons).
They were directly condemned for the death of Malik Oussekine. But, more than
this, crowd management needed to be reinvented for the modern era.
The method conceived of at the time aimed to prevent Agincourt (as if it
had happened a fortnight before, in Paris), Maginot (as if it were last week) and
especially Waterloo (which never took place). This revolution in policing operations
included mobile units used in a mobile manner, mixed units (uniformed and
civilian), functioning in a legal capacity, with a process determined in agreement
with the Public Prosecutor’s office and under the control of district attorneys. It
was designed to be preventative by anticipating places of departure, routes taken,
or arrival points of participants deemed to be dangerous.
The idea of armored vehicles was quickly abandoned, because these vehicles
(including those used by the gendarmerie on December 8 th ) are very difficult to
control in towns or outside of an OPEX (exterior operations) conflict.
Although the question of cellphones and the increased mobility of crowds
were envisaged, nobody foresaw the effects of social networks—evidence enough
that it will be necessary to do more than simply adapt the principles for maintaining
law and order. A total and rapid rethink is what will be needed—in order
to guarantee the freedom to demonstrate and the right to protest; to ensure that
whatever power is in place responds to the people it governs; because the security
response is only ever a stopgap enabling uprisings to be contained, to reopen dialogue,
and to establish consultation. But this has never prevented a Revolution.
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