France is not a racist country and should not be compared with the US, a French government spokesperson has insisted, after a banned rally held to protest against a death in custody ended in violence, reports The Guardian.
Police fired teargas and rubber bullets at protesters who gathered in support of Adama Traoré’s family on Tuesday evening. About 20,000 people turned up for a demonstration in Paris that was banned by the authorities.
The killing of George Floyd in the US has drawn comparisons in France with the death of Traoré, 24, who suffocated while he was pinned down by gendarmes after his arrest in July 2016.
On Wednesday, a Macron government spokesperson, Sibeth Ndiaye, rejected linking the deaths, saying the situation in the two countries was “not at all comparable … not historically, nor in the way our societies are organised”.
“I don’t believe we can say that France is a racist country,” she told journalists after a cabinet meeting. “There is no institutionalised state violence in our country. When there are incidents, misconduct by members of the forces of law and order … there are investigations and, if necessary, sanctions when the misconduct is proven.”
Ndiaye, who was born in Senegal, educated in France and became a French citizen in 2016, called for calm, adding that Tuesday’s protest was banned for health not political reasons.
The demonstration in Paris led to 18 arrests, according to the authorities, and came as protests swept the US over police racism and violence after the killing of Floyd, an unarmed African American, by police last week.
French police said the rally on Tuesday contravened coronavirus rules outlawing public gatherings of more than ten people.
The protesters used slogans from the US protest movement to call for justice after two differing medical reports into the cause of Traoré’s death were released, one exonerating the police and a second commissioned by his family holding officers responsible.
There have been four investigations and various medical reports into the cause of Traoré’s death, with experts failing to agree whether he died of suffocation after he was pinned face down to the ground or whether his underlying medical conditions contributed to his death.