Sarkozy lays down law of the road

GENDARMES and police have been ordered by President Sarkozy to watch their language when speaking to civilians, especially young people.

Visiting a brigade of gendarmerie in the Var, Mr Sarkozy said that officers had to be exemplary in their conduct as they were the “law of the Republic”.

He insisted that there should be no familiarity in their language and that they should not “tutoie” people (ie. call them tu). “If you want to be respected by people you need to have a respectful attitude.”

In addition, Mr Sarkozy said that laws were there to be respected and, regarding the row over the legal changes to improve road safety – including strong objections from his own MPs – he said: “I will not allow the number of road deaths to start to rise again. I will not give up on this objective. We will continue to cut the number of road deaths: it is a tangible objective. We will not change just because there are elections.”

The general secretary of police union SGP Unité Police FO, Nicolas Comte, told newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur officers should always use “vous” as it allowed them to keep a “certain distance” but he thought it was not a problem to tutoie when speaking to young people.

Mohamed Douhane, of the union Synergie Officiers, said that they were trained that tu was banned but there was a difference when it was used with respect and when it was used aggressively. He added that many young people did not understand when officers insisted on addressing them with vous and reacted badly.

Photo: Frédéric Boutard - Fotolia.com