Rights groups slam French police brutality against protesters

Criticism from human rights groups mounted on Friday over the brutality of French police in handling protests opposed to President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform.

French authorities arrested more than 450 people on Thursday in the most violent day of demonstrations since the start of the year against the bill to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

In the days leading up to Thursday’s protests, rights watchdogs had expressed worries over arbitrary detentions and the police’s excessive use of force.

But security officials have defended their actions, saying they are responding to violent rioters and anarchist groups which frequently infiltrate French demonstrations to provoke clashes.

The French Human Rights League has accused the authorities of “undermining the right of citizens to protest by making disproportionate and dangerous use of public force”.

“The authoritarian shift of the French state, the brutalization of social relations through its police, violence of all kinds and impunity are a major scandal,” the league’s president Patrick Baudouin said on Friday.

Rights groups have raised concerns over the police’s repeated use of “kettling”, also called “trap and detain” in the United States, a crowd-control tactic consisting of cordoning off protesters in a small area.

Reports have emerged that police have detained foreign schoolchildren and other innocent bystanders, fired teargas at protesters in closed-off areas, and even hurt a man so badly he had to have a testicle amputated.