French police facing guerilla warfare

Stoned, beaten and insulted, their vehicles torched by crowds of hostile youths, French police say they face an urban guerrilla war when they enter the run-down neighborhoods that ring the major cities.

"Our role is to guarantee the safety of people and property but the great difficulty today is that police are having problems ensuring their own safety," said Jerome Hanarte of the Alliance-Police Nationale union.

Bedside television interviews with officers hospitalized after beatings in "les banlieues," or suburbs, support statistics showing a 6.7 percent jump in violent crime in the 12 months to August.

Fourteen officers are hurt every day in the line of duty, unions estimate, and law and order is sure to feature prominently in next year's presidential election.

Some residents complain the move spawned constant police harassment which has only exacerbated tensions with local youths, many of whom come from ethnic minorities.

"You can see discrimination in ID controls," complained Kader Latreche, 36, an Algerian with his own photo equipment repair shop in the La Courneuve suburb.

"Why is it always people from the Maghreb or black people who are being stopped and checked? If it happens over and over again, it gets to you. People are frustrated, that's obvious."

How much those frustrations are driving the violent reaction to police is hard to gauge but Nicolas Comte, general secretary of the Syndicat General de la Police (SGP), said officers now face guerrilla warfare in the suburbs.

"The simple presence of men in uniforms in some areas is no longer a provocation but a declaration of war in the minds of some louts," he told a recent police union rally.

Guigon joined the force 10 years ago, attracted by the contact with the public and the chance to make a difference on the street with wayward youngsters. In the intervening period, society at large has done little to improve matters.

The plain clothes officer in Seine-Saint-Denis said seven colleagues were attacked recently after chasing a driver who skipped a checkpoint. Their vehicle was torched and they narrowly escaped serious injury.

"The high number of officers hurt means that police themselves don't feel safe," he said.

"That's pretty serious, because if police don't feel safe, you can imagine what the ordinary citizen feels," added the officer who asked not to be identified.

To protect themselves, police often move in large groups -- a tactic youngsters say is heavy-handed and overly aggressive.

Comte says the threat to police is so great in some neighborhoods they should exercise their "right to withdraw." That means refusing to respond to emergency calls if they judge they cannot guarantee their own safety.

"Frankly, it's not worth getting your head kicked in for an end of year bonus of 200 euros ($256.8)," said the plain clothes officer.

No comment needed. I have reported on this a few times this year. It just seems to get worse.