French film and television director Olivier Marchal has delivered an emotional defence of police officers on French television amid allegations of police brutality and protests around the country, reports Radio France Internationale.
Marchal was a police officer himself for more than ten years before starting a career as an actor, director and screenwriter.
Speaking on [French broadcaster] BFMTV on Monday night, he affirmed that he, and by implication other police officers, did not choose the job to “bash up Arabs and black people”.
“Cops conduct themselves extremely well,” he said, while acknowledging that “they are human too” and some officers sometimes let the force down.
But those who were racist or who failed in their duties should not be conflated with all the other police officers who behave “in an exemplary way”, he declared.
Visibly tearful, Marchal railed at those in his own industry who offered opinions from their apartments, as he pointed out that being a police officer was “a very difficult job”.
Marchal took a swipe at French actor Omar Sy whose open letter published in l'Obs weekly appealed for people to "have the courage to denounce police violence".