THE exchange could hardly have been worse for the French police as they strive to allay their reputation as enemy of the ethnic estates.

TF1, the television channel, showed a young Arab in the outskirts of Lyons objecting politely about the insulting manner of an officer who had demanded his identity papers.

“You want me to take you to a transformer?” the officer sneers back, referring to the electricity station where two teenagers were electrocuted while fleeing an identity check. The incident sparked the riots.

“We don’t give a s*** if your estate calms down,” added the officer, using the disrespectful “tu” rather than “vous”. “In fact, the more it gets f****d up the happier we are.”

The episode hardly conveyed the responsible manner for which the Government has been congratulating the hard-pressed forces de l’ordre during the ethnic rioting that broke out in response to the teenagers’ deaths on October 27. It did illustrate the wall of incomprehension that separates the white French police from the inhabitants of the sprawling estates whose young men have gone on the rampage.

From Marseilles in the south to Lille in the north, the kids on the troubled cites say that brutal policing is a big source of their anger. “Casser les keufs” — beating up cops — is what they like doing best, say the young wreckers. “We torch a car and when the keufs turn up, the fun starts,” a teenager said with typical bravado at a northeast Paris estate. The police are hated for their forays into the estates in number to stage aggressive identity checks.

The main target are the body-armoured men of the Compagnies Republicaines de Securite (CRS), the national riot police who have borne the brunt of the violence. “They see us like a rival tribe invading their territory. It’s a test of their manhood to fight us,” said a CRS major as his men entered battle with the boys of the Aulnay-sous-Bois estate last week.

The CRS, who live in barracks and rarely know the neighbourhoods in which they are deployed, have softened their tactics since the days of pitched street battles between demonstrators and phalanxes of baton-wielding officers. In the 1968 student revolt, the demonstrators taunted les flics by chanting “CRS-SS” and then waited for the charge.

Most of the 9,500 riot police and gendarmes deployed this month are being sent out in small patrols, sometimes on foot and carrying their helmets to reduce provocation despite the danger of injury from projectiles. Commanders have drummed into their men the need to avoid excessive force that could lead to injury and provoke even more violence.

There is no doubt, however, that the riots of 2005 have exposed a failure of policing. The roots go back to France’s traditional distrust of state authority and a history of heavy-handed, brutal and sometimes murderous enforcement. Cherished fictional heroes such as Commissaire Maigret are exceptions to the rule that the police are not much respected or admired in France. A distinction can be made for the Gendarmerie, a separate military command, that polices the countryside.

One man in particular is being blamed: Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister. His error, in the view of many mayors and experts, was dismantling the so-called Proximity Police, a scheme for community policing that was launched by the Socialist Government in the late 1990s. Appointed by President Chirac in 2002 with a mandate to crack down on crime, especially in the lawless ethnic estates, M Sarkozy said scarce resources must go to enforcement. “The police are not there to be social workers. They are there to arrest crooks,” he said.

CANDID CONFRONTATION

THIS is an extract of a verbal exchange between police and estate teenagers near Lyons, shown on the TF1 television channel.First a boy addresses a police officer who has demanded the boy’s papers in rough terms — using the disrespectful “tu” instead of a formal “vous” — and told him to “shut your face”

First boy: “You (Vous) tell us to ‘shut your face’ and we haven’t done anything, Monsieur”

Policeman: “You want me to take you into an electricity sub-station?” (where two teenagers were electrocuted)

First boy: “Sorry Monsieur, you are being rude and I haven’t spoken to you, M’sieur”

Policeman: “In that case don’t talk. We’re telling you to get back, so get back”

First boy: “Listen Monsieur, we are using ‘vous’ with you but you and your colleague are using ‘tu’ with us. We are respectful . . .”

A second boy insults a bald policeman, saying: “Good for you, you’ve got cancer, you’re all bald”

Second policeman: “So you want to go and fry with your mates? You want to go into the transformer? Shut your ugly mug, we’re going to give you a going over”

First boy: “If that’s the way it is, do you think that the estate will calm down?”

Third policeman: “We don’t give a shit if the estate calms down or not. Actually, the more it gets f****d up, the happier we are”

Note: It appeared that the polite boy knew that the television camera was there — but the police did not

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