French Interior Minister Gerald Durmani said he had personally ordered the suspension after security camera footage was published by news website Loopsider.
Saturday’s video shows the man identified by his lawyer as Michelle Zeckler, who was beaten by officers.
“These pictures are indescribable, extremely shocking and as I learned about them, and about what happened, I demanded that those police officers be suspended,” Durmani said in a televised address on Thursday night.
He added, “As soon as the facts are confirmed by justice, as he will investigate it, I will demand the dismissal of those police officers.”
Lupsider published an interview with an anonymous person with facial injuries who said he was the victim of the beating. “At that moment, I’m scared, I’m telling myself that maybe today is my last day, what I thought to myself is here, it’s my last day and I don’t know why.”
Reuters said the man told reporters he was walking near his studio without a face mask, violating French Covid-19 rules. He said he entered the studio as soon as he saw police officers to avoid fines. The man said officers then physically beat him and sexually abused him.
The Paris police prefect said in a statement on Thursday that the French internal police investigation agency had been asked to investigate the incident and that the director general of national police had been asked to suspend police officers involved as a precaution. CNN was unable to immediately determine who represented the suspended officers.
The incident came as a shock to the French people after protests against police brutality and another video of police violence in France. That video was filmed during an operation to dismantle a migrant camp in central Paris on Monday.
Darmani then tweeted that “some images of illegal immigration camps being demolished” are shocking. He later said he had also asked the French internal police investigation body to investigate the operation.
The French civil liberties ombudsman, Claire Head, announced Tuesday that she would also investigate police action.
The Paris prosecutor’s office told CNN that an investigation into both the migration camp incident and the beatings had been opened.
The public prosecutor’s office said two separate investigations into the dispersal of the camp were launched Tuesday – one related to alleged acts of change, and the other to acts of violence against journalists, the prosecutor’s office said.
The sanctions – which still need to be passed by the Senate – were opposed by civil liberties organizations and journalists. Reporters with Borders Secretary-General Christophe Dilor tweeted on Thursday that he had met with French Prime Minister Jean Kastex to discuss the law and announced the next formation of an independent commission to rule on it.
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