Undercover journalist exposes racist element in French police

Authorities to investigate after book by Julian Gendrot reveals regular abuse of migrants, Arabs and blacks

French police clear a tunnel used by crack addicts in the 19th arrondissement of Paris on September 3, 2020. AFP

A journalist who went undercover in the French police for several months has revealed a racist and heavy-handed force that targets immigrants.

Valentin Gendrot is the first journalist to infiltrate the French police and discovered they referred to North Africans in racist and derogatory terms during his three months in a Paris division. The incidents of violence and racism were covered up because colleagues lied for each other.

After three months training Gendrot, 32, found himself in the tough 19th arrondissement of north-east Paris patrolling the streets armed with a gun. The area is one of the roughest in the French capital, with a large and impoverished immigrant population that has often been in conflict with the police.

As a young white police officer, Gendrot said he found himself hearing “casual racism” while working with colleagues in the area from March last year.

There were several unpleasant and racist encounters with young men, many of North African origin, during the six months he spent at a police station where tensions between authorities and locals were high. Gendrot said he saw officers assault youngsters and migrants and was sickened by racist and macho comments from colleagues, which were “tolerated or ignored by others”.

"It really shocked me to hear police officers, who are representatives of the state, calling people who were black, Arab or migrants 'bastards', but everyone did it," he wrote in his new book about his infiltration titled Flic, French slang for a policeman. "It was only a minority of officers who were violent … but they were always violent."
The journalist claimed the violence was frequent and described an occasion where he was forced to concoct evidence against a young immigrant who had been assaulted by an officer.
"They don't see a youngster, but a delinquent," he wrote. "Once this dehumanisation is established everything becomes justifiable, like beating up an adolescent or a migrant."

He was also surprised at the small amount of training officers received and the stress they faced for relatively small salaries of £1,194 (Dh5,824) a month after tax. He also came across a high incidence of depression and suicides among officers.

Gendrot found applying for the job was fairly easy in a force short of officers. No questions were asked about gaps in his CV that would have revealed his journalist past and he got through security checks with ease.

The journalist has now called for a “clean up” of police ranks to root out racist officers, who he said formed only a minority in the force.

The General Inspectorate of the National Police will investigate incidents highlighted in Gendrot’s book and the journalist is expected to be called as a witness.