The Thin-Skinned Blue Line

You can call them members of the “creative cops” generation, according to The Guardian’s Jason Burke. He’s talking about the scores of Parisian police officers who’ve embarked on writing careers, producing “warts-and-all portraits” of French policing, graphic novels, memoirs, and other varieties of books. Writes Burke:

They range from other personal testimonies and meditations on what it means to be a policeman, a 100-page cartoon series created by a 45-year-old veteran agent in the French equivalent of MI5 that details his missions tracking down Islamic militants in Paris, scores of personal or station blogs, to a rap album by an anonymous ‘brigadier’ posted in the internet.

‘This is a totally new phenomenon,’ said Frederic Ploquin, a crime correspondent and police expert. ‘Before, the only people writing books were retired senior commissioners and your average plod was just a worker or peasant. Now a new generation of police with university degrees and culture are finding ways to express themselves while still serving in the force.’

Burke puts this explosion of literary output among the Parisian constabulary down to “deep discontent among French police.” Read more of his report here.

(Hat tip to Sarah Weinman at GalleyCat.)