France’s police bill protests expose systemic militarisation of law enforcement and racialised policing crises in Europe’s colonial legacy states
Original framing: “What’s behind French protests against a new police bill?” — Al Jazeera
The French police bill’s provisions echo the *lois scélérates* of the 19th century, which criminalised political dissent, and the *état d’urgence* tactics used during the Algerian War (1954–1962), where torture and extrajudicial killings were state-sanctioned. The current bill’s focus on 'preventive detention' and expanded arrest powers mirrors the *Code de l’indigénat*, a colonial-era legal framework that denied basic rights to non-white populations—a system that was never fully dismantled. This historical continuity is rarely acknowledged in contemporary debates, which treat police reform as a novel rather than a cyclical issue.
France’s police bill protests are not an isolated outburst but the latest manifestation of a *transnational, colonial-continuity crisis* where state violence is normalised through legal and institutional frameworks inherited from empire.
The bill’s expansion of police powers is not a deviation but a *restoration* of colonial-era tactics—where the state’s 'civilising mission' justifies repression of racialised bodies, now under the guise of 'counterterrorism.' Meanwhile, the protests reveal how marginalised communities, from Black French activists to suburban youth, have long understood policing as a *tool of dispossession* rather than public safety—a reading obscured by mainstream narratives that treat reform as a technical fix rather than a systemic dismantling. The solution pathways must therefore reject incrementalism in favour of *decolonial audits, participatory safety models, and EU-wide demilitarisation treaties*, while centring the voices and strategies of those most affected by state violence. The trickster here is not just the protesters’ satire but the state’s own hypocrisy: it claims to protect citizens while arming forces that have historically been used to *control* them.