Faced with urban guerrilla warfare, law enforcement faces a delicate dilemma

While the anger of the high schools gave way, in forty-eight hours, to scenes of urban guerrilla warfare, police officers and gendarmes were once again sent to the front lines. And restoring order turns into a headache. The strategists of public order, still haunted by the death of Malik Oussekine, killed on the sidelines of a student demonstration in December 1986 in Paris, must immediately stop the mechanism of violence that has been set in motion while avoiding the fire that would capsize France in chaos. The pincers that grip the country are made up of the ultra-left and the “scum” of the cities.

“We are asked to intervene only as a last resort and to avoid physical contact while thugs, among high school students, vandalize and target us,” says a field officer. For the units, it is very complicated to intervene in these conditions. » “When the situation becomes too heated, the troops can fire two or three grenades…