A Day In The Life Of French Police

Life as a police officer, in today's France, as read in the short account carried (with scarce details) at the French news site "Le Post" (loosely translated from the original):

Two off-duty police officers were jogging in the Parc de la Feyssine, at Villeurbanne. The police were jogging out of uniform and came upon a group of youths, who started to insult them. To calm down the situation, the two joggers revealed that they were policemen. At that moment they were attacked by the youths, beaten up to the point that one of the police officers needed seven days leave, the other four days leave.

Later, three of the youths, two of them aged 16 and the other 15 years of age, were arrested with a stolen moped.

Some readers in the comments section want to know why the paper doesn't go into any further description of the thugs than the simple shadow term, "youths". An example: at 5:13 pm on June 26, "Matthieu" says:

"I find it distorting that instead of saying scum, thugs, they say 'youths'. Also we don't know what is being hidden behind the term 'youths'...."

At 5:27 "Robespierre" writes in reply:

"yes but as you're aware matthieu, with censorship nowadays... as well, 'youth' are 'vitims' of the system therefore forcibly innocent... as a matter of fact, if this continues, they'll say: 'Two police thugs were jogging out of uniform, they are attacked by young victims of our system!' "

If you're tempted to add your 2 francs to the discussion, make sure you read the news site's fine print for participating in their comments section (my translation):

We remind you that, conforming to the law, all injurious, defamatory and xenophobic statements [you may make], expose you to eventual legal prosecution. Anonymity does not prevent you from being identified.

Now there's a welcoming invitation for honest debate..!

To buck up readers' flagging spirits, at 6:53, "Circulez" offers a personal anecdote filled with poetic justice and an inevitable ending to the path that such suppression of reality leads us towards [loosely translated]:

One day in the middle of Paris, on a busy avenue, I saw a young thug and his mother, both aboard a BMW that was trying to get around a police checkpoint. The kid floored his BMW and escaped the cops on bicycles... who later caught up with him at the traffic lights because there were so many cars it was impossible to get around them. The cops tried to extract the guy from his car, he resists by hanging on to the steering wheel. It was then that out of the crowd came one of those heroes of modern times! A lefty in his fifties, with his little woolen vest, long curly hair attempting to cover up his bald head! This fellow runs to the scene and yells at the cops "don't you hit him, I'm watching you, don't hit him!" Even though they were only trying to pull him out, without nightsticks or anything. One of the cops ousts the mother from the passenger side, who's yelling and drawing a crowd to the scene. The lefty throws himself towards the door on the driver's side and gets in the way of the cop trying to make an arrest! The suspect is now lying across both front seats and is giving kicks to the police officer who is trying to get him out of there. Since the lefty also has his head in there, despite the police officer pushing him so that he goes away, the lefty gets a magnificient boot right to his nose, he falls backward, his nose all bloodied, and starts rolling around on the ground, whimpering. Finally, the cop gets the guy out, other police arrive and help him handcuff [the youth]. Every one is okay... except for superman who's yelling and sniveling that he has a broken nose and that they should call [9-11]... !

[Thanks to Le Salon Beige]