French prosecutors have launched an investigation after two police officers were reportedly caught on film making racist remarks about an arrested man, reports The Guardian.
The incident happened in the early hours of Sunday after a man suspected of theft was pulled out of the Seine river in the Seine-Saint-Denis banlieue north of Paris.
In the video, reportedly made by a local resident, a police officer can be heard using an extremely offensive word for a North African, before adding: “They can’t swim. You should have attached a ball and chain to his ankle.”
The man is then handcuffed and put into the back of a police van, where he can be heard shouting.
The film, posted on Twitter by Taha Bouhafs, a journalist and anti-racism activist, prompted the French interior minister, Christophe Castaner, to tweet: “A video showing a police intervention around the Île-Saint-Denis has provoked legitimate indignation. Light will be shed (on the incident).”