Thanks @Cizin! This part I find particularly interesting:
Head of France’s police trade union:
In fact, most of my colleagues support the yellow vest movement, as we are effected a lot by the fuel price rise too. We can’t live there where we work, either because it costs too much, or because we have to arrest our neighbours. Our colleagues on the ground have to follow the orders of those who are not on the ground.
and then there’s this:
video: some French police stand down, take off their helmets to a crowd of yellow vests singing the national amthem, La Marseillaise.
Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L’étendard sanglant est levé,
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!
Aux armes, …
transl.:
Arise, children of the Fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us, tyranny’s
Bloody standard is raised,
Do you hear, in the countryside,
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They’re coming right into your arms
To cut the throats of your sons, your women!
To arms, …
Re. a European police force / army: this would encourage a lot more police violence than we see now, as cops would be stationed in countries they have no connection to, facing people they have no emotional or cultural bond with.
It’s why they pulled cops from all over Germany to the G20 summit in Hamburg last year to play riot cops. If the people don’t even speak the cop’s language, cops’d have even less restraints.
Pretty much every empire in history did a similar thing (with the exception of the metropole getting to police itself).
true, I’m sure it’s not the first time. It would be the first time they don’t answer to an actual government, seeing as how europe is not actually federated. It would be a force without a state. Who would they answer to?