The French police have lost faith in the judiciary

Emmanuel Macron broke his silence about the recent riots in France at the start of this week. In a speech in New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific, the president of the Republic declared that the country required a ‘return to authority at every level’.  He added: ‘The lesson I draw from this is order, order, order.’

There was a certain irony to the president’s proclamation. He spoke as a crisis erupted in France, at the heart of which is a power struggle between the police and the justice system. 

Resentment has been festering for a number of years within the police – among senior officers as well as the rank and file – that that country’s magistrates don’t much like them. They believe that much of the judiciary leans to the left politically and is more concerned with victims’ rights than supporting police officers in what has become an increasingly violent occupation. 

The police are well aware of the hostility they face from some left-wing politicians, mainly Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise, an animus they feel is shared by some magistrates.