Three French police officers face trial over 2020 beating of Michel Zecler

The producer sustained around 30 punches and truncheon blows to the face and body over a five-minute period, according to the investigation. The medical report noted craniofacial trauma, a wound to the lip and scalp, and a complete rupture of his biceps tendon, leaving him unable to perform his job for 45 days.

France's human rights ombudswoman has said police used racist insults during the assault, according to four witnesses. The officers denied this, and the alleged racism was not included in the indictment. Zecler said they had used a racist slur against him. "I was insulted and I will repeat this at the hearing," he said.

In their arrest report, the officers claimed the producer had hit them and tried to seize a truncheon, a version of events refuted by the camera footage that the French media website Loopsider released several days later. "I don't understand the hatred I saw in their eyes," said Zecler, who has a titanium anchor in his left arm after the ruptured tendon and says he still suffers nightmares. "If there hadn't been cameras... their reports would have been enough to send me to prison," he said.

Most cases of alleged police brutality in France are dealt with internally. A French police officer is to be tried over shooting dead 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk at point-blank range in June 2023 outside Paris. Video footage also contradicted the police's version of events in that incident, sparking nationwide protests. Guilty verdicts in alleged police brutality cases are rare. In 2024, a judge gave suspended jail sentences to three officers who inflicted irreversible rectal injuries on a black man, Theo Luhaka, during a stop-and-search in 2017.

Young men "perceived as Arab, black or from North Africa" are four times more likely to be stopped by police than the rest of the population, according to a report last year by France's rights ombudswoman. They are 12 times more likely to be subjected to more severe measures, including being frisked during checks, it said after a survey of more than 5,000 people.