Christophe Castaner is finally staring at the edge of the political abyss. Already weakened by his multiple communication errors and for his terrible management of law enforcement during the Yellow Vest crisis, the Minister of the Interior seems to be one of the main collateral victims of the attack of the Police headquarters of Paris, which killed four people last week.
According to an Odoxa poll for Le Figaro and Franceinfo, the Socialist “number one French cop” no longer inspire confidence.
Several lessons have been learned, the poll shows. Already in a bad position, Castaner is now even more discredited than before. Indeed, 70 percent of the French do not trust him anymore in the fight against terrorism while two-thirds of them think that he has made a mistake by expressing himself too quickly on the subject.
At first, the minister stated that the perpetrator of the attack “never had behavioral difficulties” or had given “no warning sign”. His false statements were quickly exposed when the first elements of the investigation were made public.
As a result, his image has taken a disastrous turn and he is considered “clumsy”, “without authority”, and “incompetent”, not “reassuring” by two French people out of three. This is the worst record ever, about twenty points below his two predecessors, Gérard Collomb and Bernard Cazeneuve.
Moreover, this attack has not only degraded the image that the French have of their own institutions, but also of politics in general. Thus, the police, the army and the intelligence services have lost five to seven confidence points, even if the army retains some confidence (82 percent), just like the police and gendarmerie (78 percent) and to a lesser extent, intelligence services (69 percent).
And in terms of terrorism, the French do not trust their leaders either: Emmanuel Macron is distrusted by 62 percent and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe by 64 percent of respondents.
Finally, for three quarters of the French (73 percent), the attack on the Prefecture is not an isolated act, but the sign that other police and intelligence services in France are concerned. This finding is shared by all political parties, from LR (89 percent) to the RN (83 percent), including supporters of the left (69 percent from Insoumis) and LREM (66 percent).
No comments.
By submitting a comment you grant Free West Media a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate and irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin’s discretion. Your email is used for verification purposes only, it will never be shared.