France bans police use of chokehold arrests amid ongoing George Floyd protests

French police will abandon the chokehold method of arresting suspects, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner promised as George Floyd protests in the US inspired renewed outrage over police conduct in France.

“It will no longer be taught in police and gendarmerie schools,” Castaner said on Monday, adding that the chokehold “has its dangers.”

He also vowed to pursue a policy of “zero tolerance” for racism in the police. “It is not enough to condemn it. We have to track it down and combat it.”

Too many French police officers “have failed in their Republican duty” in recent weeks by allowing themselves to use racist and discriminatory remarks, the minister said.

Castaner’s press conference took place several hours after President Emmanuel Macron called upon his government to “accelerate” steps to improve police ethics.

Large-scale protests began in the US at the end of May after Floyd, an African American man, was filmed with a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes. After turning violent and spreading across the US, the protests crossed the ocean and flared up in European countries, including France.

Some 23,000 people took to the streets of several French cities over the weekend, to decry police brutality in the US and at home in violation of the ban on public gatherings imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. An earlier rally in Paris mid-week resulted in clashes, with the police using teargas against the crowd.

In addition to reusing “Black Lives Matter” and “I can’t breathe” slogans embraced by US protesters, French demonstrators also chanted “Justice for Adama.”

Adama Traore was a 24-year-old black man who died in French police custody in 2016, with media reports saying he was suffocated by officers as they tried to restrain him. Adama’s relatives now insist that his death was the same as Floyd’s.

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