A handful of French police officers thought it was a good idea to wear blackface, scratch themselves like monkeys and take pictures of it at a party.
The officers from the Parisian suburb Kremlin-Bicetre are under investigation for the offensive pictures that surfaced on social media last week. The pictures, showing the officers smiling with their shoe polished faces with bananas and a bucket of nuts, quickly went viral.
“If the police officers who have the responsibility to fight racism are busy making fun of black people than defending them, it could explain why things have advanced so little in this domain,” says Louis-Georges Tin, President of the Conseil Represantatif des Associations Noires.
This photo scandal follows a string of high-profile racist taunts towards France’s black Justice Minister Christiane Taubira. Last November, the French magazine Minute published a cover with the headline, “Crafty as a monkey, Taubira gets her banana back.”
The officers could be fined or fired for their racist behavior.