Four municipal police officers in the southern French city of Carcassonne remain suspended on Thursday as prosecutors investigate racist, sexist and homophobic remarks caught on a police body camera.
Issued on: 10/09/2026 - 09:09Modified: 10/09/2026 - 11:04
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The daily newspaper Midi Libre this week revealed a recording made by a police officer's body camera, without his knowledge, while on patrol in November 2025. Midi Libre said the officer who made most of the remarks was a member of France's far-right National Rally (RN) who had worked with the party's security service and provided security for RN president Jordan Bardella during a visit to Carcassonne in February. The RN said on Wednesday it had expelled him from the party and removed him from its security service. "It is an isolated incident and a purely fabricated affair," RN vice-president Louis Aliot said on French broadcaster Franceinfo on Thursday. "Ever since Marine Le Pen took the reins of the party, people who have no place here have been systematically shown the door. You cannot gauge what people are thinking, any more in the RN than in the Socialist party or the Communist party." Carcassonne investigation A judicial investigation into the recording is continuing, with witnesses still to be questioned and potential victims to be identified. The investigation began after the officer at the centre of the case filed a complaint over the recording. The Carcassonne prosecutor's office said it was "implementing the measures (...) allowing for the suspension and subsequently the withdrawal of the accreditation of the municipal police officers concerned who do not meet the standards of integrity required for their duties". Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on social media on Wednesday that he had ordered an inspection of the Carcassonne municipal police. He condemned the racist, homophobic and misogynistic remarks as unworthy of the municipal police uniform and the values of the French republic. Midi Libre said the officer provided security for Bardella when the RN president visited Carcassonne on 7 February 2026 to support the mayoral campaign of Christophe Barthès. During a press conference on Wednesday, Carcassonne's RN mayor denounced the officers' remarks as "disgusting and inexcusable". His administration received the conclusions of an administrative investigation into the incident on 19 May, Barthès said. "The inquiry failed to establish with certainty the identity of the authors of each of the recorded remarks," he said. The prosecutor's office said it had not yet received the conclusions of that investigation. In the video, the officer responds after a female resident called police because she had hit an animal. "No, it might be a migrant, a little Kirikou," he says, before imitating an African accent. "Kirikou in the savanna (...) he came to France, he gets hit by a vehicle." Political reactions The case drew condemnation from across the political spectrum. Aurore Bergé, minister delegate responsible for equality between women and men and combating discrimination, described the remarks on French broadcaster RMC as "absolutely unacceptable". Opposition politicians also used the case to attack the National Rally over racism. "This is what France would look like under an RN government. Unrestrained and encouraged hatred," Renaissance presidential candidate Gabriel Attal said. The criticism also came from the left, with hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) accusing the RN of failing to distance itself from its past. "Those who spend their time trying to detoxify the image of the National Rally should open their eyes: nothing has changed in this party, which is infested with racism and fascism," LFI national coordinator Manuel Bompard said. (with newswires)
