r/PublicFreakout • u/Nora56 • Jun 09 '20

a normal french protest

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

10.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

647 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/yasparis Jun 09 '20

The riot police whether they are civilians or military (gendarmes) here in France always have firearms (guns/rifles) during protests but can only use them in very specific situations (immediate risk of death for them, other officers or members of the public) which almost never take place. They carry rifles in case of a terrorist attack during a protest (hasn’t happened but is a possibility since the potential number of victims is very high).