French Police in Revolt Over Staff Shortages Amid Terror Crisis Overtime Load

Hundreds of French police have staged further demonstrations in Paris in protest at staff shortages and cutbacks that have left the force exhausted doing millions of hours' overtime to combat the terrorist threat that has engulfed France for 18 months. Hundreds more staged demonstrations in Marseille, Nice and Toulouse.

Police had staged a protest Monday (October 17) on the Champs Elysees in the heart of Paris and followed it up with another 24 hours later in the southern commune of Evry, where national police director Jean-Marc Falcone was meeting with unit chiefs.

The action follows a series of anti-police riots in which officers have been attacked and injured.

In the latest, one officer was seriously injured in a Molotov cocktail attack in Viry-Chatillon, outside Paris, on October 8. Others were injured and are still receiving treatment.

The police have come under attack for increasing security and imposing state of emergency measures following a series of terrorist attacks in France, including the November 13, 2015 attacks and the incident in Nice in which a lorry was driven into a crown celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86 and injuring dozens more.

Volunteers install items at a new memorial in a gazebo in a seaside park on the famed Promenade des Anglais in Nice, southern France, Monday, July 18, 2016.

© AP Photo / Claude Paris

Police have demanded more resources after coming under attack when entering "no-go zones" which are dominated by gangs, in an effort to prevent further terror attacks. French President Francois Hollande has only recently begun recruiting more officers after thousands of posts were lost under cutbacks imposed by his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.

Cutbacks

There have been 13,000 job cuts since 2007, in an effort by the French Government to reduce public spending. Even before the Paris attacks of November 2015 and the imposition of a state of emergency, officers had racked up a backlog of 20 million hours in overtime.

Although the police protests were condemned by Falcone for being organized spontaneously, without union backing.

"They are illustrating an exasperation that I understand," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told the Senate.

The recent terrorist attacks exposed deep flaws in the French police system — riddled as it is by silo-working — and gaps in local knowledge caused by the proliferation of police "no-go zones" under Hollande.

Cazeneuve is set to meet police unions Wednesday (October 19), in an effort to calm their fears and prevent further unilateral protests by French police.