Gendarmes have been cleared of committing any “professional fault” during the night in which 21-year-old botany student Rémi Fraisse was killed by one of their grenades during a protest against the building of a dam in south-west France. The gendarmes' watchdog the Inspection Générale de la Gendarmerie Nationale (IGGN) said that while it was indeed a gendarme grenade that killed the student at the site of the proposed Sivens dam on the night of October 25th, officers had “fulfilled their mission with professionalism and restraint”. The report concludes: “The administrative inquiry has not brought to light breaches of legal and ethical rules or of approved techniques in the maintenance of law and order.”
Enlargement : Illustration 1
According to the report the grenades and other weapons that were deployed during the clashes were done so according to the law, which authorises the forces of law and order to use them where there is “violence against public forces or it is impossible to defend the territory they are holding in any other way”. The role of the IGGN was to examine the way in which security operations had been conducted at the ongoing dam protest near Albi since the end of August 2014, and to consider whether procedural and ethical rules had been followed.
The only witnesses interviewed were members of the gendarmerie and CRS riot police plus officials from the prefecture, the state’s local office. These included the prefect for the Tarn département, Thierry Gentilhomme, and his chief of staff, plus gendarmes from the Tarn, officers from mobile gendarme units at Limoges in central France and La Réole, south-east of Bordeaux, plus an officer from the CRS 20 riot police unit based at Limoges. According to the IGGN the spokesman for the collective that is fighting to stop the irrigation dam being built, Ben Lefetey, was asked to give evidence but did not respond to the request.
The night of October 25th to October 26th
The logbook of the tactical gendarme unit the Groupement tactique gendarmerie (GTG), whose contents have been revealed by Mediapart, show that as soon as the young protester died officers in the mobile unit immediately made the connection between his death and an offensive grenade that had just been thrown. This type of grenade has since been banned by interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve. In the logbook the gendarmes wrote at 1.45am on October 26th: “A protester wounded by OF”, in other words an offensive grenade. At 1.59am they wrote: “Wounded protester apparently died. External bleeding at the level of the neck.”
But this logbook, which could hardly be clearer, was deliberately ignored by the IGGN which reconstructed the chronology of events that night based solely on videos recorded by the La Réole mobile gendarme unit and on recordings of its telephone conversations with the local operational centre, the Centre d'opérations et de renseignement de la gendarmerie (CORG) in the Tarn. When questioned about this on December 2nd by MPs from the National Assembly's legal committee, the head of the IGGN General Pierre Renault explained that they preferred to focus on recordings where “you hear the voices” rather than “to rely on writings which are sometimes unclear or even vague”.
At the time of Rémi Fraisse's death a squadron of 72 mobile gendarmes - “the minimum conceivable number” according to Pierre Renault – was facing “about a hundred” demonstrators on the construction site's compound, surrounded by ditches and fences. The squadron from La Réole knew the site well as they had been on the site “since October 16th” and had already “held the site the previous night”. At 0.25am “50 to 70 demonstrators again started propelling projectiles at the security forces”. The level of violence rose “rapidly”. But the IGGN report confirms that no gendarme from the mobile units were injured that night. In contrast, two gendarmes and six CRS officers (two seriously) had been hurt in confrontations during the afternoon.
At 0.49am the first tear-gas grenades were thrown, followed at 1.03am by explosive-type grenades, GLI F4 (mixed tear-gas and blast) and OF F1 (offensive grenades). In total, “237 tear-gas grenades, 41 rubber baton rounds, 38 F4 grenades and 23 offensive grenades” were thrown by the gendarmes between 0.20am and 3.27am. A first protester fell after a rubber baton round was fired (from a type of weapon called a LBD 40) and officers went to rescue her. “It turned out that it was a young woman who was not injured and who was allowed to rejoin the ranks of the demonstrators,” says the IGGN report.
Around 1.40am the protesters apparently received reinforcements. Then it was the turn of Rémi Fraisse to fall, in his case mortally wounded. At a distance of “about 15 metres” Sergeant J. spotted “a group of hostile demonstrators, equipped with helmets and shields, who were throwing projectiles, followed by another larger group that took over the area”. This group was apparently “led by a man whose orders one could hear”. Having used his night-vision binoculars and after issuing a warning, the gendarme “threw his [editor's note, offensive] grenade in a previously identified area which was considered to be unoccupied”, lobbing it over the 1.8 metres high fence.
During his questioning a gendarme major from the same squadron said he had seen a protester fall to the ground after the explosion. But “he was not in in a position to make a connection between the two situations”, says the report. “A dark mass on the ground” was reported a few minutes later. At 1.45am some gendarmes were tasked with going to bring in the protester “under a hail of projectiles” to give him first aid. In a gendarme van a first aider “gave him first aid, including cardiac massage. It was cut short by the discovery of a large wound at the top of the back”. At 1.51am the commander in charge of the gendarmes called the Centre d'opérations et de renseignement de la gendarmerie (CORG) in Tarn, without making it clear in his information “that the victim was already dead” or giving “any details as to the origin of the wounds”. At 1.53am – two minutes later – the same commander reported that Rémi Fraisse had died, as well as stating that his death had taken place at the same time as a “LBD shot [editor's note, rubber baton round] and the throwing of an offensive grenade”. The IGGN report insists: “At that time it was only supposition.”
At 4.12am a “first cursory examination of the body” was carried out by a doctor in the fire-fighters' ambulance in which it has been transported, with a more in-depth examination taking place at 5am at the funeral parlour. “This examination did not enable the fatal wounds to be linked to the effects of an offensive grenade any more than the first examination,” says the IGGN report. According to the inquiry, it was only the results of analyses on Tuesday October 28th that would allow the removal of any doubt about the cause of the young protester’s death.
- The transmission of information
It is apparent that on the night in question, it was the judicial authorities who were the last to be alerted to what had happened. An initial message was indeed left on the Albi prosecution services' answer machine at 2am. But it was only at 2.42am that the gendarmes managed to reach the deputy public prosecutor, just before investigators and technicians from the gendarme detective unit the Section de recherche, who were based at Toulouse, arrived at Sivens “just before 3am”.
Meanwhile the Tarn prefect's office was alerted at 2.08am “without indicating the cause of the death, in the absence of precise information”. At 2.23am the on-duty official at interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve's office was called, and informed of the “discovery of the body of a protester at Sivens in circumstances that have not been established”.
Arriving at Sivens early in the morning, before his troops had packed up camp, the “second in command of the gendarmerie for the Midi-Pyrénées region mentions the fact that the throwing of an offensive grenade by a mobile gendarme and the falling to the ground of a protester took place close together”. The briefing sent to the minister of the interior's office at 4.29am is even more “cautious”. It reads: “This document confirms the death of a protester during a confrontation with security forces, without being able to state that the death can be attributed to the throwing of an offensive grenade.” Why was there such caution about the information that was provided? The IGGN gives its own guidance on such issues: “It is in fact indispensable to transmit confirmed information after cross-checking different information obtained both from on the ground and also from the duty offices at other ministries and public bodies. The experience proves that the transmission of information that has not been previously verified presents a high risk of denials later.”
And General Pierre Renault told MPs on December 2nd: “Imagine what impact the news that a demonstrator had been killed by an offensive grenade could have if it hadn’t been cross-checked first.” In other words, it was in an attempt to avoid “disinformation” - to use the general’s own word - that the gendarmes appear not to have fully informed the authorities of events. At 9.55am the Tarn prefect's office put out a press release, approved by the ministry of the interior, stating that “the body of a man was discovered in the night of Saturday to Sunday on the site of the controversial dam at Sivens (Tarn)”. It gave no further details, as if it had simply been a chance discovery. This same choice of words was used at the end of the day, at 7.40pm, in a press statement from the ministry of the interior: “The body of a young man was discovered around 2am. First aid rescuers unfortunately certified that he was dead.”
- The decision to deploy a security presence at the planned gathering on October 25th
This is one of the most controversial issues because there was nothing left to protect at the site. The heavy machines had been removed on October 23rd, as the IGGN report confirms. But after the temporary site hut and the on-site generator were set alight on the Friday, the head of the gendarmerie for the Tarn and the prefect's chief of staff decided to “protect the site's compound until the morning of Monday 27th with a permanent presence of security forces”. The report lists four reasons for this, with the fourth appearing to be the most important:
“ - in case of attack the protection of the site cannot be guaranteed by security guards alone
- the organisers of the demonstration are unable to keep their commitment to keep away from the compound
- the presence of an EGM [mobile gendarme squadron] on the site allows them to intervene in case of a counter-demonstration by local people and farmers in favour of the project, to avoid serious violence
- finally, the restart of work on the Monday morning means that the most determined protesters cannot be left to occupy and booby-trap the site and its access, with the risk of having to carry out a major operation on the morning of October 27th to clear the roads and retake control of the site. And this operation would carry a major risk of incidents and put at stake the safety of the demonstrators present and of gendarmes.”
In short, the work on the dam must not be delayed, to avoid it becoming a new Notre-Dame-des-Landes, the new airport project at Nantes in west France where opponents have occupied the site. The situation quickly escalated. From the evening of Friday October 24th the La Réole mobile gendarme squadron used “68 CM6 tear-gas grenades, 38 mixed explosive/tear-gas F4 grenades, 17 offensive grenades and 27 rounds from rubber baton defence weapons” to “keep hold of the site to avoid it being taken by radicals”. These radicals are described as being “equipped with protection (helmets, masks, shields) and who use projectiles of all sorts (stones thrown with the aid of slings and powerful catapults planted in the ground, home-made mortars, incendiary cocktails)”.
Despite this the CRS riot control police and the mobile gendarmes came back the following day. The mission of the commander of the tactical gendarme unit the Groupement tactique gendarmerie (GTG) was to “ensure the protection of the heavy equipment at [the nearby village of] Montans and the compound on the construction site … unless he considers that the situation has become untenable for the security of the mobile force”. Why had he not withdrawn in the night as he had been instructed if he thought that the “safety of [his] men was threatened”? According to the IGGN report the lieutenant-colonel in command had apparently judged that “a disengagement manoeuvre at a short distance from the demonstrators and under attack from their projectiles would have run more risks to the gendarmes than staying in place”.
In his evidence this same GTG commander, who was interviewed as a witness from as early as October 26th at 4.30am, spoke of orders to show “extreme firmness” on the part of the “Tarn prefect via the [gendarme] group commander”. The IGGN passes over this point in complete silence and talks only of orders about “calming down” the situation.
- An investigation obstructed?
On Sunday October 26th the prosecutor at Albi had bemoaned the fact that investigators could not get access to the site because of the “hostility” of the protesters. In fact, according to the IGGN report, it seems that they had not even tried to go back there. “All visits to the scene risks being interpreted as a provocation on the part of the security forces and carries a risk for the safety of personnel,” says the report.
- Two months of confrontation
The report describes a “dramatic rise in violence from August 25th in the opposition to the project”. This coincided with the preparatory works before the start of tree clearance at the site (from September 1st) and the arrival in office of the current Tarn prefect, just after the arrival of a new head of the gendarmerie in the Tarn and a new commander of the local gendarmerie at nearby Gaillac (at the beginning of August). The first confrontations between gendarmes and protesters go back to the first expulsions of demonstrators from the site in February and May 2014. But these disturbances “amounted to symbolic resistance which did not require the use of specific munitions to keep order”. Between local gendarmes from the Tarn département and activists there was even a genuine “dialogue”.
But from August 23rd the authorities changed gear. It was now time for councils of war. Each evening for two months the “chief of staff [editor’s note, to the prefect] held an audio-conference at around 7pm with the leaders at the département council, the representatives of the dam project's clients [editor's note, a company known as the CACG], the town hall at [nearby] Lisle-sur-Tarn and the commander of the gendarmerie in the Tarn, allowing them to have a daily status report and to decide on operations the following day”. According to the IGGN this approach corresponded to the appearance of a “handful of radicals grouped in a collective called 'Tant qu'il y a des bouilles' ('As long as there are faces' – 'bouille' is an expression for face or 'mug')” and the influence of “13 zadistes [editor's note, protesters, see here for more details] from Notre-Dame-des-Landes … formally identified by the intelligence services”.
The report talks of a “strategy of daily harassment of the security forces”. It continues: “The most violent come into contact with the [mobile gendarmes] and harass them, but as soon as the gendarmes take action to secure the construction site and its workers, the leaders withdraw and leave it to the non-violent opponents (environmentalists, clowns, passers-by), generally unknown to the gendarmes and the police, who put themselves between the security forces and the radicals.” It adds: “The reactions of the security forces are filmed to produce the idea of a disproportionate response.” Citing photographs, the IGGN considers that the “level of violence exceeds that encountered at Notre-Dame-des-Landes in the sophistication of the means employed (mortars, bottles of acid, booby-trapped barricades and home-made barriers)”.
The IGGN also cites the evidence of a journalist from TV Libertés who “infiltrated” the zadistes. This is in fact an internet-based TV station that appeared in January 2014 and which brings together figures from the extreme right in France (Renaud Camus, Robert Ménard, former far-right Front national members Roger Holeindre and Martial Bild), and in particular from the Nouvelle Droite and the Club de l'Horloge (Jean-Yves Le Gallou, Yvan Blot).
- Counting the wounded
What, however, was the result of this extreme violence from the zadistes? In two months the IGGN records 13 physical assaults on the security forces, of which six occurred on the night of October 25th and October 26th (involving CRS riot control police officers). The most serious injury concerned a warrant officer from the gendarme surveillance and intervention unit the Pelotons de Surveillance et d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie (PSIG) who suffered a hand injury during an arrest on September 15th. He was signed off work for 45 days. As Mediapart has already reported, two zadistes accused of having violently kicked this officer and another gendarme were immediately brought before the courts and on September 17th one was given a four-month suspended prison sentence, the other a two-month suspended term, while one was also given a one-month suspended sentence for refusing to provide a DNA sample. The two activists have appealed because they say that the gendarme was in fact struck by one of his own colleague's boots in the course of the arrest.
On the other hand the report only counts seven injured among the demonstrators, even though more than 20 official complaints have been lodged since the start of September. Using figures from the fire brigade [editor's note, in France fire officers routinely provide first aid care and take accident victims to hospital] General Pierre Renault also claims that, other than the death of Rémi Fraisse, no demonstrator was injured on the night of 25th to 26th October at Sivens. However, Mediapart has highlighted at least two injuries:
- Marc P., aged 56, who suffered a chest injury which he claims was caused by a projectile (almost certainly a rubber baton round) from the security forces between 1am and 1.30am. He suffered bruising of the lung and was signed off work for 13 days. According to his lawyer, Claire Dujardin, he lodged his complaint with the prosecutor’s office at Albi at the end of November.
- Paul B., who, says Claire Dujardin, lodged his complaint on November 26th. “He passed out after a stun grenade was thrown on the night of October 25th to October 26th and lost 30% of his hearing,” his lawyer says.
Several protesters who were hurt on the same night were directly cared for by the demonstrators' on-site volunteer medical team and were not seen by the official emergency services. They have therefore not been counted. One of them, whom Mediapart met at Sivens on October 31st, had been hit on the top right-hand side of his chest by a rubber baton round. Six days later the outline of the impact was still very clear. Another protester, Florian, had an enormous purple bruise on his thigh: he said that just after midnight he had been struck by a tear-gas grenade whose pin had not been pulled out. Some of the protesters do not want to make an official complaint, either because they no longer have their correct official documents or have trust in the justice system, or because they clashed with the security forces and do not want to be identified. This all makes it difficult to count the number of people injured.
- Code of conduct: just two breaches highlighted
Out of all the videos and complaints of the protesters, the IGGN lists just two cases of “breaches of the code of conduct”. Both of these occurred during the removal of protesters from their on-site camp known as 'Gazad' on October 7th, 2014. Fortunately for the protesters these violent acts were filmed by their comrades. As for the rest, “if other breaches had been committed, it is likely that the protesters, who systematically film the gendarmes' conduct, would have broadcast them”, notes the IGGN report.
In the two cases that were identified, the breaches concern two non-commissioned gendarme officers from the surveillance and intervention unit the PSIG. The most serious breach, which was revealed by Mediapart on October 27th, involves 25-year-old activist Elsa Moulin, whose hand was seriously injured by a sting grenade thrown into a caravan by a gendarme from the PSIG. The IGGN report, however, says that the link between the use of the grenade and the injury has “not been established with certitude”. It adds: “In fact, the images do not allow one to identify the object whose explosion caused the flash and the wound.”
When Mediapart met Elsa Moulin on November 5th she had a long scar on her hand (see photo below), the result of an incision by a surgeon in an attempt to avoid tissue death.
Enlargement : Illustration 3
The IGGN report also raises doubts over whether Elsa Moulin has even lodged an official complaint because “no investigation service seems to have been informed of the facts”. In an attempt to be helpful, Mediapart here provides the number under which the prosecution authorities in Toulouse told this website on November 6th, 2014, that it had recorded the complaint made by Elsa Moulin: 14303000235.
The other breach concerns a demonstrator who was kicked on the ground by a gendarme from the PSIG based at Albi. However, according to the IGGN it was a “gesture to make the individual get up again, without any intention to cause injury”. The gendarme concerned got away with a verbal reprimand from his group commander “taking into account the context of the prolonged over-exposure of PSIG personnel who have for several months been subjected to physical fatigue and psychological pressures caused by the events”.
In the end the IGGN identifies no systematic lapses by the security forces. “Before Rémi Fraisse's death, the notably reduced number of injuries among the ranks of the protesters since the end of the month of August, despite the violence of the confrontations, shows that the security forces, all categories included [editor's note, mobile gendarme units, riot police and local gendarmes] have fulfilled their mission with professionalism and restraint.” Even if, during that period, a protester died.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter