Of course Macron won’t tackle police violence – he knows his power depends on it | Pauline Bock

Since the 2018 gilets jaunes crisis, the French president seems to have accepted brutal police tactics. Is it fear or indifference?

As of this week, a crowdfunding campaign set up by the French far right in support of the police officer who shot and killed Nahel M, a 17-year-old from Nanterre, has now surpassed 1.4m. Around the same time that Nahel's killer's fund passed the 1m mark, it was reported that at least 120 young people who had been arrested in the unrest unleashed by his death had already been sent to prison.

So far, this swift, firm and systematic judicial response" to the riots, as demanded by the justice minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, has been the only real response by the government to the unrest that has swept across French cities. Locals have been met with curfews and reduced transport in some cities, and in every cite where cars have burned and shops have been looted, the police presence has grown exponentially, with 45,000 officers deployed across France on Friday night.

Pauline Bock is a French journalist based in Paris