French police unions slam Macron for remarks on discrimination

France's two main police unions have denounced comments by President Emmanuel Macron that officers carry out more checks on people who are not white. One group called on its members to stop carrying out identity checks, saying the president "will get the police he deserves". 

Macron made the comments on Friday in an interview with the online platform Brut, in a bid to reach out to younger people as anger against his contested security bill continues to boil over. 

"Police are not racist and they do not decide who is and who isn't a delinquent," said the Alliance union in a message posted on social media. 

'Shameful'

The union slammed the French government's "lack of faith in the police" and rejected Macron's suggestion that skin colour or racism played any part in police checks.  

"This is shameful. The president will get the police he deserves," Alliance said, calling on police to stop performing identity checks altogether. 

The Unité SGP union slammed Macon for "blaming the police rather than blaming politicians over the past 50 years, who discriminated...and banished immigrants to the suburbs, with a total lack of diversity, so they didn't have to see them."

In his interview with Brut, Macron rejected the term "police brutality", saying it had become politicised. He denounced violence perpetrated both by and against police, while acknowledging, "There are some officers who are violent. They must be punished."

The president said he would launch a national platform for reporting discrimination in January.

Police violence is in the spotlight after several recent incidents, culminating successive weekends of unrest as thousands protested across France.

Last weekend, several people including journalists were beaten while covering protests against the controversial security law that has been called authoritarian, which came days after the savage police beating of a black man, music producer Michel Zecler, and the controversial evacuation of a migrant camp in Paris's Place de la République.