A look back at the 1986 demonstrations and the death of Malik Oussekine
(B2) It was thirty years ago... Malik Oussekine died on the night of December 6 in the Latin Quarter, after a severe beating by police officers who were not sparing with beatings with truncheons. For all those who were students at the time, it sounded like a turning point... For me in particular, it sounded like a question mark.
At the time, to be honest, as a young student at Paris I Sorbonne, I had become responsible for the student health service. Basically, the service set up by the student coordination to provide internal relief. We were quite discreet.
Several dozen students in different universities
We managed to bring together several dozen students (rescuers, nursing students or doctors), often from medical schools. Teams scattered all over the faculties on strike and the processions, which made it possible to supervise the demonstrations, to give first aid … and to bring up information. It was quite improvised, in a few minutes on a corner of the table, between the three Parisian universities (Sorbonne, Jussieu, Tolbiac) at the forefront of the movement. But it worked pretty well. It was also a real observation post of the political life of this small student coordination as overflows on both sides.
Paired teams
These teams (in pairs on foot, or even motorbikes or vehicles) had three essential roles:
1) in normal rhythm of demonstration, to treat the essential minor sores of a gathering of people — from malaise to a blister —;
2) in "confrontation" rhythm, to provide assistance to people injured or shocked in the "battle": discomfort in the crowd, tear gas,...
3) be able to provide testimonies on the situation on the spot, the possible police violence (a questionnaire had even been developed).
They were structured into teams of level 1 (minor care), level 2 (+ medication) and level 3 (at the central level, with heavier evacuation equipment: flexible stretcher, O2, etc.). We had also managed to get some small radio transmission equipment (walkie talkies at the time).
At the central level, we had several tasks during the demonstrations: it was a question of locating the various forces present in order to be able to evacuate as quickly as possible, not only on the side of the fire brigade/Samu/Red Cross but also of the forces from police. We had thus arrived at a fairly fine knowledge of the different companies (CRS, mobile gendarmes, district companies).
After the demonstrations, the task was less cheerful: listing the number of injured, light or more serious, locating where they had been evacuated, reassuring or directing the families or even looking for a lost child or (less cheerful) going to the morgue to check that he reported missing had not ended up in the Seine or on the table of the IML (the Forensic Institute). This census allowed us to say that the assessment on the student side was much higher than what had been officially indicated (see box). Many students have often been treated, in situ, and then went to consult, in their province, with a doctor or their local hospital.
A "plastic" operation
Each functioned with its procession, its university, so as to know well who was there. There was no central coordination of the health service per se, each acting - according to the defined instructions - and the specific situation on the spot. There were a few of us who liaised with both the Student Order Services (SO), the classic emergency services (SAMU, Firefighters) or exceptional services mobilized for the occasion (Red Cross, Civil Protection, Army), as well as with the authorities (Prefecture of police) (1).
This intervention has sometimes gone a little beyond the very notion of relief, acting both as permanent observers (see box), and even as a preventive measure in the event of increasing tension (2). This device was a little shattered during the confrontations; the "healthy" pairs being sometimes separated from their procession. But it continued to work nonetheless. The plasticity of the system — with fairly simple and clear directives but freedom of application and improvisation depending on the circumstances — made it possible to deal with all situations.
The device of green cross - chosen to make any confusion with other acronyms - made it possible to distinguish the effectives. He was recognized by the security personnel, even at the height of the clashes, except for the acrobats who, to tell the truth, were clubbing everyone a little, including passers-by.
A method of extraction and care
The emergency method put in place differed completely from the ordinary method usually followed in the Paris region: it was a question of 1° extracting the person as quickly as possible from the "troubled" zone or the crowded zone, 2° an assessment and make a few quick gestures (dressings...) as soon as you were in a calm area and 3° as quickly as possible to evacuate either to the first available ambulance (essentially Red Cross, firefighters, even military ambulance) , or even an on-call pharmacy (for a minor ailment), or directly to the nearest hospital. Basically, we did "take and run" (3), according to the Anglo-Saxon method rather than the French method of on-site care.
This method had an advantage: to segment the interventions, to use each of the tools wisely – the pairs in the crowd, the ambulances in the neighboring streets to be able to get out more quickly by the sides – so that they can very quickly reintegrate their device. The rapid evacuation of the injured/ill also had another advantage: avoiding any crowds, any nervousness which would have added more to the anguish — or the anger — of the students.
We had listed the evacuation methodology for all our pairs (download the distributed doc) like the material, a map of emergency hospital structures (in particular for students from the provinces, who were numerous during demonstrations). And we had a close link (by radio) with the ambulances present on the spot (Red Cross, Samu, etc.). If necessary, we even carried out "motorcycle evacuations" (which is rather heterodox in French rescue doctrine) for lightly injured people (4).
The night of December 6
On the evening of December 5, after a long demonstration, calmer however than that of December 4, most of the leaders of the Student Coordination had deserted the field, gone to a rally, meeting or elsewhere. I was then alone on the ground in responsibility. And we took stock with the emergency teams, where the mobile headquarters of the Red Cross had been placed, along the boulevard St Michel.
The question was nagging: do we maintain the device? For how long ? Around 23 p.m., the situation was clear to me: the student demonstration was over, the last elements were dispersed. If there were still small groups around Odéon playing hide and seek with the police, that no longer concerned the demonstration.
We decided to give the order to break camp according to the terms: "the demonstration is over. The last elements have gone home. From now on, it is no longer about demonstrations. But about individual elements. We no longer have any use as an exceptional structure. This is clear from the “ordinary” relief forces and no longer from the “demonstration” system. So we have agreed to break camp.
I went up on foot along the Boul'Mich. There was no hint of a change in valuation. Then half on foot, half hitchhiking to my house (by chance, not far from Meudon, where Malik and his family lived). The next day early in the morning, I learned of the death of the student despite the intervention of the Samu. The first declarations of the Ministers of the Interior questioning the fragile health of the student to clear any fault of the police - "if I had a son on dialysis, I would prevent him from fooling around at night" said R. Pandraud — had a devastating effect, provoking anger and amazement.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
Back to the demonstration of December 4
We can thus identify two elements that complete the official hagiography of the events. To complete the student security services, a decision had been taken within the Student Coordination to appeal to far-left groups (LCR and others) and not to the security services of the trade unions (more accustomed to this type of event). Not everyone really played the game of order, preferring to sow trouble.
The troubled role of a certain student order service
Some of them carried out a deliberately offensive, provocative attitude towards the forces of order, in particular during the demonstration of December 4, which had seen more than half a million students beating the Parisian pavement (according to our own estimates). They ran ahead, detaching themselves more and more from the procession. They "left past" or "received" the reinforcement of various "autonomous" groups (from the Montparnasse station level). There was nothing peaceful about these. They were organized in small units, very mobile, armed with bats, iron bars and the like, and were well ahead of the first elements of the demonstration. The intention was clear: to do battle... These various elements (several hundred) were already in position at the Place des Invalides, engaging in several clashes with the police forces, while the bulk of the demonstration was still far away. When the first contingents of demonstrators, totally peaceful and good-natured, arrived in the square, the situation was already more than tense...
An inevitable confrontation
The confrontation was inevitable. A few hundred students and others wanted to enter in the direction of the Palais Bourbon. The security forces had received the order to prevent them, with traditional methods (tear gas grenades, advanced in shield format). The rain of cobblestones, stones and objects of all kinds (bottles) on the police was quite noticeable. The small units, organized, made "charges" at a run and then withdrew; they disappeared completely at the time of the police charges. The (official) student order service was doing everything it could to avoid a confrontation, forming a chain to avoid contact. But he was very quickly overwhelmed and received few reinforcements, such as instructions. Some of them were injured by the projectiles thrown by the students.
A battlefield atmosphere
The climate made of cries, and insults of all kinds, on the one hand; tear gas and advances - which were intended to be a deterrent but only added to the tension - played as much as objective elements in making the Place des Invalides a scene of battle where it should have been a peaceful demonstration. After several hours of presence, the public will was to "clean" the place, bluntly, to avoid any "cyst" manifesting. The toll of the event in terms of injuries is much higher than the official toll: at least 300 injured (5).
The troubled role of "neighborhood companies"
If the lines of mobile gendarmes stoically waited for the order to intervene - then set in motion inexorably - the neighborhood companies (based in police stations and little trained in a semi-insurrectional situation) reacted in a much more epidermal, more anticipatory, more disorderly way, with the use of their weapons in an unconventional way. Wearing the same insignia as the CRS, they were often confused with them (6), but did not have the same qualities of training or order... According to our locations, this is how their ranks — sometimes placed in second line, behind the mobile gendarmes — that there have been a number of serious incidents, in particular the shooting.
(1) Preference had been given to "white" services, not attached to the police headquarters (Samu, Red Cross) rather than to others (Firefighters, Civil Protection), except in a vital emergency or unable to reach them quickly.
(2) This method was used in particular at the start of the demonstration, after the (unfortunate) bludgeoning of a somewhat vindictive passer-by by the SO (order service) of the demonstration. Like what, the small strikes weren't just on one side...
(3) Nothing very original about this, a method derived from war medicine, but not very common at the time, when the principle was to treat on the spot (cf. attacks of 1986). This method was taken up again during the recent attacks.
(4) Some police forces had - even after December 6 - the unfortunate position of putting themselves forward, as close as possible to the demonstration. This did not really have the effect of calming the situation, on the contrary. On several occasions, we succeeded in getting the security cordons cleared. Which had an immediate effect: to pacify the parade (without denying an inch to the forces of order).
(5) For the big demonstration of December 4, civil protection carried out 172 interventions: 146 on-site treatments + 26 evacuations, 50% of which were CRS, and 2 hospitalizations for serious care. The Red Cross carried out more than 200 interventions: 130 on-site treatments + 85 evacuations and 26 discharges (treatments that would have required evacuation but refused by the beneficiaries). 24 hours later, 12 people remained hospitalized in more or less serious care in Laennec, Ambroise Paré, La Pitié, Boucicaut and Hotel Dieu.
(6) These companies (called intervention) wear the same insignia and equipment with two small exceptions: the crest sewn on their uniform does not bear the mention of the CRS but of the National Police (but the colors and the layout are almost identical) ; they don't have the yellow line on the typical CRS helmet.
