The multiplication of “refusals to comply”, a reality with various causes

Two dead in less than 24 hours, Wednesday September 7, after police shootings following “refusal to comply” in Rennes and Nice. Nine deaths since the beginning of the year. In a few weeks, the question has become a major subject of political and security debate, fueled by the legitimate media coverage of these repeated tragedies.

Sign of a “enslavement of society” for some, proof of “systemic police violence” for the others: the polarization of the debate is not satisfied with nuance and pays little attention to the causes of the phenomenon, which are nevertheless clarified by unequivocal figures. In 2020, the report of the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory noted, over one year, a 16.5% increase in refusals to comply with 26,589 cases recorded. In a decade, from 2010 to 2019, this offense has seen a considerable increase of more than 49%, rising to 80% for the most serious cases, which involve a “risk of death and injury”.

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Why such inflation? In the eyes of the police unions, a “anti-cop hate” almost generalized would suffice to provide an explanation for the phenomenon which is in fact explained by a multiplicity of factors. How not to establish a link between the entry into force of the license points, in 1993, and the multiplication by 25, since, of the number of refusals to comply? How not to compare this increase to the situation of the 800,000 French drivers affected by a lack of insurance? Confiscation of the vehicle, cancellation of the driving license, prohibition of driving which can go up to five years: the heavy repression of this offense can weigh, in an economic context where the loss of a means of locomotion can also mean that of a use.

Exception within exception

To these factors must be added the proliferation of anti-drug operations, in line with the “War on Drugs” decreed by the authorities, which increases the temptation to evade police checks. Especially since the improvement of instant screening tools responds to the frantic quest for statistical performance – the “stickite” – deplored by the police officers monopolized by this task.

Have law enforcement shootings increased proportionately? No. Here again, the statistics sweep the assertions out of the blue. Admittedly, for the national police, 60% of cases of opening fire concern moving vehicles category, broader than that of “refusal to comply”. But the police only take responsibility for using their weapon in only 1.1% of these cases and, in almost all, only do so once they have been put in danger, either when a vehicle has deliberately hit them, or that a driver himself targeted them. As resounding as the episodes of deadly opening fire are, they only provide an exception within the exception. But an exception with tragic consequences.

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