Bruno, Chief Of Police

Two TV cameras were filming them as they marched along the Rue de la République,

past the supermarket and the Farmers’ Co-op, past the big branch of the Crédit

Agricole and over the bridge, lined on both sides with townspeople, to the town

square and the Mairie. There, the Mayor and some other dignitaries stood waiting

on the low platform that was normally used for the music festival. With

irritation, Bruno noticed that the town’s small force of gendarmes was lined up

with Captain Duroc in front of the podium. He had asked Duroc to post his men in

twos at different spots around the square as a precaution. As the church bells

began to ring out noon, the siren on top of the Mairie sounded, and the entire

parade squeezed into the remaining space. There was already quite a crowd, the

bar was empty, and a third TV camera had joined the media group. The siren faded

away and the Mayor stepped forward.

‘Citizens of St Denis, Monsieur le Ministre, mes Généraux, friends and

neighbours,’ the Mayor began, his practised politician’s voice carrying easily

over the square. ‘We are here to show our sympathy with the family of our local

teacher Mohammed al-Bakr at the tragic death of his father Hamid. We are here to

give salute to Hamid as a fellow citizen, as a neighbour, and as a war hero who

fought for our dear native land. We all know the heavy circumstances of his

death, and the forces of order are working tirelessly to bring justice to his

family, just as we in our community are here to show our revulsion against all

forms of racism and hatred of others for their origin or their religion. And now

I have the honour to present Monsieur the Minister of the Interior, who has

joined us today to bring the condolences and support of our government.’

‘Send the Muslim bastards back where they came from,’ came a shout from

somewhere at the back, and everybody turned to look as the Minister stood

uncertainly at the microphone. Bruno began to move through the crowd, looking

for whichever idiot had called out.

‘Send them back! Send them back! Send them back!’ The chant began and with a

sinking heart Bruno saw three flags of the Front National lift themselves from

the crowd and began to wave. Putain! Those coaches he’d seen were not

Montsouris’s union friends at all. He felt a flurry at both sides of him and two

knots of rugby men with Karim at their head began pushing their way through

towards the flags.

Then came a howl from a bullhorn and another amplified chant began of ‘Arabs go

home! Arabs go home!’ Montsouris’s wife joined in with her own bullhorn calling

‘No to Racism!’ and the first volley of rotten fruit, eggs and vegetables began

sailing through the air towards the stage. This has been well organised, thought

Bruno grimly. He had seen three coaches in the car park, say thirty or forty men

in each, so there were probably as many as a hundred of them here – and only

thirty lads from the rugby club and a handful of Montsouris’s union toughs to

stop them. This could be very nasty, and all on national television. One of the

Front National flags went down as the rugby men reached it, and groups of men

began punching each other as women started to scream and run away.

Bruno stopped. There was not much a lone policeman could do here. He began

pushing his way back towards the stage. His priority now was to get the

schoolchildren clear. He’d leave the gendarmes to look after the dignitaries. A

sudden charge by some burly men, Montsouris among them, nearly knocked him down,

and as he scrambled for balance, a cabbage hit the back of his head and knocked

his cap off. Quickly he bent to grab it, otherwise the school children might not

know who he was. Shaking his head to clear it, he found Rollo already trying to

steer the children into the shelter of the covered market. A handful of the

older boys slipped aside and joined in the charge against the groups of Front

National supporters.

Amplified howls of ‘Send them back! Send them back!’ fought bullhorn slogans of

‘No to racism! No to fascism!’ as the dignitaries put their hands over their

heads against the volleys of tomatoes, and scampered into the Mairie past a

protective gauntlet of otherwise useless gendarmes. Captain Duroc went into the

Mairie with the Mayor, the Minister and the two generals, the gold braid of

whose dress uniforms looked the worse for the barrage of old fruit and

eggshells.

They managed to get the schoolchildren into the market. Shouting to making

himself heard over the din of shouting protestors, Bruno told Rollo and Momu to

get the youngest children into the café and tell old Fauquet to make sure the

door was locked and the shutters down; then to call the pompiers and tell them

to get their engines into the square now, with their sirens going and their

water hoses ready to send out some high pressure jets to clear the area.

Bruno took in the scene around him. In the confused melee in front of the hotel,

flags and placards were being turned into clubs and lances. Another smaller

fight was under way beside the steps that led to the old town, and a group of St

Denis women, Pamela and Christine among them, were trying to get away up the

steps as some skinheads grabbed at them. The crowd was thinning and Bruno pushed

his way through, seizing the first of the thugs by the collar, kicking his feet

from under him and shoving him into the legs of two of his cronies. That made

enough space for himself to reach the foot of the steps and get between the

thugs and the women.

‘Get away, get out of here!’ he shouted at the women as the thugs closed in,

trying to grab him. He felt the old training come back, his body moving

automatically into a fighting stance, his eyes scanning the scene for threats

and targets. He dropped his arms, ducked and rammed his head into the stomach of

his nearest assailant, seized the leg of another and pulled him off balance, and

then thumped his fist into the throat of the next, who sank to his knees,

choking.

That stopped the first rush, and suddenly time began to move slowly and the

instincts that had been drilled into him took over. A fierce joy began to grip

him, the adrenalin of combat, the self-confidence of a man trained for battle.

Now was the time to attack, when they had lost their momentum. Bracing himself

on the steps, he jumped at one youth who was brandishing a length of wood, with

a Front National poster attached, as thought it were a spear. He slammed the

heel of one hand into the base of the youth’s nose, then pirouetted to ram a

vicious elbow into the solar plexus of another. He used the turn to kick yet

another on the side of his knee and he was back at the base of the steps, three

men down before him.

One of the women stepped up beside Bruno and deliberately kicked the choking

skinhead in the testicles. Surprised, he registered that it was Pamela, who was

drawing back her foot to do it again. He stretched out his arms to hold her back

and keep the thugs away from the rest of the women when he felt a thudding blow

on the side of his face. Then he was punched hard in the kidneys and kicked in

the knee and someone else was hauling on his ankle. He knew that the first rule