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Article: Police prefect who strove to restrain brutality during 1968 Paris uprising
- Article from:
- The Irish Times
- Article date:
- August 29, 2009
CopyrightCopyright 2009 The Irish Times. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Maurice Grimaud : MAURICE GRIMAUD, who has died aged 95, is best
known for trying to limit police brutality during the student and
workers' uprising of May 1968, when he was prefect of police in
Paris.
One of the main characteristics of the May events was, indeed,
police violence, vividly captured in the press photographs and
footage of the time, featuring riot police beating demonstrators.
But Grimaud strove to restrain the aggressive inclinations of many
policemen and senior officers and, in a letter sent to all Parisian
police, he wrote: "Beating a demonstrator on the ground is like
beating oneself, and brings the entire police force into disrepute."
That the May uprising did not become a ...