Accusations of “blackface” in Poitiers: municipal police officers suspended from their internship – Le Figaro

In question, a video where we can see one of the trainees dancing on the terrace of a restaurant in Poitiers, her face grimaced in black. Municipal police officers were suspended from their training course a month after the publication of a video where one of these trainees can be seen dancing on the terrace of a restaurant in Poitiers, her face made up in black, indicated Saturday the National Center for the Territorial Public Service (CNFPT) to an AFP correspondent. Read also“They want to cut my throat in the public square”: the ordeal of a restaurant owner, threatened after the “blackface” of a client According to the restaurant owner, certain participants in the evening were part of “a promotion of the municipal police” in training at the CNFPT in Poitiers. “They all said, ‘you can’t say it was us,'” Michaël Taylor told RMC info on Thursday. Questioned by an AFP correspondent, the management of the establishment condemned the attitude of the trainees and indicated that they had temporarily suspended their training. A letter was also sent to the communities that employ them during their internship to inform them of these actions. “It is then up to the local authorities to establish these civil servants or not,” said Didier Mercier-Lachapelle, director of the New Aquitaine delegation of the CNFPT on radio France bleu Poitou, adding for his part, that there is no would have no further sanction. “Practice constituting a racist crime” This video of a few seconds filmed by a passerby during a costume party for a bachelor party on May 18 and then posted on social networks shows a white woman wearing a wig afro, his face made up in black, dancing in a stereotypical way on the terrace of the restaurant. Since its publication, restaurateur Michaël Taylor claims to have suffered on social networks a wave of accusations of racism and promotion of “blackface” – a practice which consists in blackening the face in order to make fun of black people. He says he lost “80% of his turnover” and received insults and death threats. This week, SOS racism supported him, his local manager Cheikh Diaby, assuring him that he was “a collateral victim.” “It’s the person doing the ‘blackface’ who caused trouble,” Cheikh Diaby told an AFP correspondent on Thursday. Read also “Blackface” and “whitewashing”: when representing Otello turns into a puzzle for operas “Blackface” is a “practice constituting a racist offense (…) born in the United States during the slavery period “, which many restaurateurs ignore, according to Cheikh Diaby. The restaurateur who works with his mother said he filed a complaint for death threats, defamation and cyberbullying.