THREAD : POLICE BRUTALITY IN FRANCE, THE CASE OF ADAMA TRAORÉ.
Please fasten your seatbelt and share this thread to inform the world.

Police brutality isn’t unknown to France. In fact, it has been going around for the last few decades, back to the waves of immigrants from France’s former colonies (West / North Africa), who came to help rebuild the country after the WWII and were confined in housing projects.

This thread’s goal is to show the world that people from the working-class areas in France, especially people of African descent (Maghreb included), are often targeted by the police too. We’ll be stating facts only.

Before we start, here’s a contextualization : between 2005 and 2015, the « Urgence, notre police assassine » (Emergency, our police murders ») noted that among the 103 people who died in the hands of the police, 95% were of African descent. @unpa75 @AmalBentounsi

Malik Oussekine, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, Gaye Camara, Amine Bentounsi… Unfortunately, Adama Traoré is one of the many people in France who died in the hands of the police. Justice is barely done : dismissed case, suspended sentences, etc.

So here’s the story : June 19th, 2016, Adama Traoré and his brother Bangui are stopped by the cops for an identity check in Beaumont-sur-Oise, in the Paris “banlieue”. Adama, who didn’t collect his new ID at the prefecture/town hall, ran away.

Why? Because in these areas, things usually escalate quickly between the cops and the residents. Not having an ID can be used against you to take you into custody. Sometimes, if you decide to oppose, you’re getting beaten down. This happens a lot.

Police’s behavior in these areas is different from privileged areas of Île-de-France (Paris’ region). Lots of young males fear when they see cops doing their daily patrols. “When you see cops, run“ is taught to kids to avoid any tragedy. So Adama Traore’s reaction is common.

When the three police officers finally caught him, they pounced on Adama. According to the cops, he wasn’t opposing. Yet, they still used the prone position - face down with his hands behind his back, & put all their weight on him (250kg / 551 lbs), preventing him from breathing.

He repeated many times « I can’t breathe », fainted in the police car and was thrown in the police station’s court, unconscious. When the paramedics arrived, they noticed that Adama wasn’t breathing. He was pronounced dead approximately 2 hours later.

Since the beginning of the case, every expert assessment requested by the justice gave a different explanation to Traore’s death. His sister, Assa Traoré has been asking for justice for the past four years, accusing the justice system of protecting the cops behind his death.

She’s a member of the « Vérité et justice pour Adama » committee @laveritepradama & has been fighting for justice & against police brutality in France ever since. She wrote 2 books about the case.

The 1st expert assessment requested by the court claimed that he died of a heart attack and had traces of alcohol/meds. The attorney said he was suffering from a sort of lung infection. A counter-assessment made by 2 doctors revealed the absence of pre-existing health conditions.

Another expert assessment made in February 2017 concluded that his death was due to an “asphyxia symptom” whose origin needs to be determined.

October 2018 : a new official expert assessment says that Adama Traoré died because he was carrying a « sickle cell gene » and because of the physical efforts while trying to escape from the police officers. The case was then dismissed.

Another counter-expert assessment requested in mars 2019 by the family revealed that Traoré did not die because of his “stage 2 sarcoidosis” or his “sickle cell genes”. These doctors are known to be specialists in these two diseases, unlike the ones behind the other report.

The case is reopened on April 2019, another expert assessment is requested by the magistrates. The results reveal on May 29, 2020 that Adama Traoré died of a sort of “pulmonary edema” (did not find the exact english translation)

The report uses words such as « black race subject ». The word « race » in French carries, in that context, a racist weight. Many explanations seen as a way to protect the police officers.

Adama Traore’s mistreatment, death and justice denial are the symptom of a wider problem : systemic racism, in the police and in France in general, that has been targeting Black and North-African males for decades, especially in the poorest areas in France.

For instance, a study made by @defenseurdroits revealed that male identified as Black / North-African had 20x more chances to get racially profiled. Never forget that racial profiling / ID check leads to police brutality and it happens mainly in the working-class areas.

A poll made by Ipsos in 2017 also revealed that more than 50% of police and military officers voted for far-right political party « Rassemblement national », lead by Marine Le Pen, built on racist and xenophobic ideas.

But these studies and polls are still not enough. Ethnic and race statistics are forbidden in France, making it hard to measure the true impact of racism towards minorities.

France still has a long way to go before acknowledging the racist dimension of police brutality because of its color-blind way of thinking. Here’s an extract from a study about “Color-Blind racism in France” https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1848&context=law_journal_law_policy

« If my brother was white, would he support the weight of three police officers? Would he be taken to the police station without getting any help? Would his unconscious body be thrown in the police station’s court? » repeated Assa Traoré many times. « The answer is no ».

For Assa Traoré and the thousands of supporters of the movement, the fight won’t be over until justice is done. Tomorrow, June 2nd, a protest will take place in front of the High Court of Paris to denounce the last expert assessment.

Here’s an interesting take on police brutality in France made by Mathieu Rigouste for The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/13/french-police-violence-gilets-jaunes-victims