France police to ban chokehold arrest as protest anger mounts

PARIS: France said on Monday it would ban the controversial chokehold method used to detain suspects, after the death in custody of George Floyd in the United States intensified anger over the behaviour of French police.

A wave of global protests in the wake of Floyd´s fatal arrest magnified attention on the 2016 death in French police custody of Adama Traore, a 24-year-old black man, and renewed controversy over claims of racism and brutality within France´s police. The country´s police watchdog said on Monday it had received almost 1,500 complaints against officers last year -- half of them for alleged violence.

Seeking to take serious action after a string of protests in recent days, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner announced the chokehold method "will be abandoned". "It will no longer be taught in police and gendarmerie schools. It is a method that has its dangers," he said in a televised press conference, while stressing he would pursue a policy of "zero tolerance" for racism in law enforcement.

"Racism does not have a place in our society and even less in our Republican police," said Castaner, adding too many officers "have failed in their Republican duty" in recent weeks, with several instances of racist and discriminatory remarks revealed. "It is not enough to condemn it," said Castaner. "We have to track it down and combat it."

Earlier on Monday, President Emmanuel Macron urged his government to "accelerate" steps to improve police ethics. The presidency said Macron had met Castaner and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Sunday after some 23,000 people protested in several French cities on Saturday to demand "justice" for victims of crimes allegedly committed by police officers.

The French demonstrations started in response to an expert report clearing the three officers who arrested Traore. This was in spite of one of the officers having told investigators the young man had been pinned to the ground with their combined body weight, and a report commissioned by Traore´s family finding he had died due to the police members´ actions. Some 20,000 people rallied in Paris last Tuesday to demand justice for Traore and Floyd, defying a coronavirus ban on public gatherings of more than 10 people, followed on Saturday by more protests in several French cities. Floyd had similarly died after being pinned to the ground while under arrest.

Media outlets last week published the contents of a private Facebook group on which French police members repeatedly used racist and sexist terms and mocked victims of police brutality.