“Police violence here is now structural” – Corriere.it

From our correspondent
PARIS – As always, when I go to photograph the demonstrations I had a helmet, a gas mask and diving goggles. But they fogged up, at one point the police charged and I didn’t see anything, I felt a blow to the right cheek, a bat. But nothing serious, the face is already deflated. my colleague Ameer al-Halbi, a Syrian, fared worse. The agents really smashed his face. The tension is increasing in France, I fear that there will be increasingly serious violence and that someone will die, he says. Tay calenda, 31-year-old photographer.

His father Carlo, former ministerThe Action founder and mayoral candidate for Rome proudly spoke about her on social media on Sunday, calling her tough as steel. Yesterday, then, to those who failed him, Calenda’s father recalled that my daughter is a photographer and has so much respect for the police that she is engaged to a police officer.

Were you in the plaza on Saturday for photos, demonstrations, or both?
To work, I am a photographer. When I participate as a protester I always leave the equipment at home. I have been following the demonstrations for many years, this summer I also photographed the police parades and I think that they too are often victims of a crazy management of public order. The truth is that Saturday’s demonstration was correct and that the idea of ​​limiting freedom of the press by banning film agents is incomprehensible.

How long have you been living in Paris?
For ten years. After a Luiss year in Rome, I studied at the Sorbonne for a year, then I dropped out of my studies and worked as a waitress in a restaurant. A world opened up for me, I preferred to work. Before I became a photographer, I worked as a lighting assistant for fashion photographers, and still do, from time to time, to round off.

The demonstration was called after the police violence on Michel Zecler, wrongly accused by police officers and later denied by the videos. Is that story a turning point?
The hallucinatory violence against Michel shows that the theory of the few bad apples no longer holds. Police abuse is a structural problem in France. The agents are often young, poorly paid, poorly trained, sent to the fore by hierarchies that no one can hold accountable. Racism, homophobia and violence are present in the police, it is useless to deny it. These referrals must be combated with greater training for agents but also this part of the public service, such as schools and hospitals, in crisis.

Journalists, photographers like her and Ameer al-Halbi, protesters and more than 100 policemen were injured on Saturday.
The barrel-filled ground agent seen in the video was in front of me, a terrible scene. The procession may be quiet, but in the end the violent ones arrive. They wait for the last policeman in line, perhaps isolated, and attack him. The angry pack scares me, whether it be police officers or protesters of unjustifiable violence.

What do you think of Macron?
I do not allow myself to judge it. For French society that is experiencing too many problems, let’s not forget terrorism, and the government should try to restore calm as much as possible. Instead, there is a man like Grald Darmanin in the Home Office. As a feminist activist and in defense of LGBTQ + people, I spoke out against Darmanin. Anyone under investigation for sexual abuse cannot be appointed a minister.