PARIS (Reuters) – France plans tougher sentences for violent attacks on police, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Monday, as the government responds to public outrage over two recent officers’ killings.
Anyone receiving a life sentence for a serious crime against law enforcement will serve a 30-year mandatory jail term before any eligibility for parole, under the proposals unveiled after a meeting between Castex and police unions.
The announcement came as police said they had arrested two people over the shooting of an officer during a drugs bust in the city of Avignon last week.
That killing and the April murder of a police employee by a recently radicalised Islamist in Rambouillet, near Paris, have stoked public fears around crime and terrorism that already loom large over France’s 2022 presidential election.
(Reporting by Laurence Frost and Jean-Stéphane Brosse; editing by Richard Pullin)
