MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th December, 2020) French President Emmanuel Macron is planning to launch the so-called Beauvau de la securite initiative - a series of consultations to reform police structures - in early January, amid the national outcry over police brutality, the Europe 1 broadcaster reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.
According to the media outlet, the initiative scheduled for the next month is designed to reorganize working conditions of the national police and ease tensions between the security forces and the population. Tensions escalated over the past weeks over recent acts of police violence, and a draft bill that seeks to penalize distribution of images and videos featuring police officers, which critics say, would undermine freedom of speech and press.
The broadcaster stated, referring to Macron's letter addressed to the SGP Police FO union, that the Beauvau de la securite, named after the Hotel de Beauvau housing the Interior Ministry, could result in a 1.5-billion-euro ($1.8 billion) increase in the Interior Ministry's budget. Home Minister Gerald Darmanin is expected to present the proposals to achieve the initiative's goals.
Darmanin will also consult police representatives on the proposals to make reforms in such fields as police training, supervision, filming of operations, and relations with the population on December 18.
"The Beauvau de la securite announced by the President of the Republic is the first stone of the great planning law of internal security that the police have long deserved," Darmanin tweeted underscoring his support for the national security forces amid the nationwide dismay over police violence.
Apart from mass rallies over the security bill, which is due for a hearing in the upper parliamentary chamber in January, France has also been outraged by a series of violent police acts, including the physical abuse of a black musical producer by several law enforcement officers and the forceful evacuation of migrant installations in central Paris.
