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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joe Golder, Agency: Newsflash
The controversial fresco in Paris honouring Adama Traore and Georges Floyd and denouncing police violence has been painted over after law enforcement unions complained it showed them in a bad light.
The incident took place in the commune of Stains, which is in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of the French capital Paris.
The fresco had caused outrage with French police unions.
The fresco showed the faces of Adama Traore, who died in 2016 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, in the Val-d’Oise department after his arrest and that of Georges Floyd, who died in the city of Minneapolis, in state of Minnesota, in the United States at the end of May, with a police officer’s knee on his neck.
The fresco was inaugurated by the Mayor of Stains, Azzedine Taibi, a member of the French Communist Party (PCF) at the end of June.
The words “against racism and police violence” could be read above the two faces. The fresco was subsequently defaced with graffiti.
On 3rd July, the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis ordered that the fresco should be covered.
French newspaper capital Actu17 report that the fresco was completely painted over on Friday (25th September).
Alliance 93, a police union, had expressed its anger after the fresco was unveiled. They denounced an “ultimate provocation by an elected official of the republic that stigmatises the police.”
Alliance 93, after fresco was covered over, took to Twitter to say: “Alliance 93 has managed to re-establish the honour of the police despite threats and hatred against us on social media.”
Alliance Police Nationale 93 for the Roissy and Bourget areas also posted on Twitter and captioned their post: “Stains: The Anti-Cop fresco denounced by Alliance 93 has been covered. The injunction of the Prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis was finally heard by the Mayor of the town.”
They added that their “audience with the prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis allowed for justice to be obtained for the police officers.”
After calls were made to have the fresco covered up, Assa Traore had said back in June: “Erasing my brother, covering his face, is to deny his existence and that all the other people who died at the hands of law enforcement.
“Erasing the face of my brother, the smile of my brother, is to tread on his memory, to offend my family, to make his name disappear (…). It is an insult to the law and to justice, it is advocating police impunity. (…) It is to a profanation of our dead. It is an insult to our dead.”
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