Misleading“Does this logo found on a police badge support a far-right group amongst the French police force and prison guards?”, asked the French news website Taranis on Monday 6th March. According to Taranis, the literal translation of the badge calls for “the death of anarchists, covered up as accidents on public roads”. This is backed up by explanations of the meaning of the black cat symbol through pages from the website Wikipedia.
The badge shows a black cat and the acronyms “DCD – AVP – RABIO”. “Is this logo, worn fearlessly by police officers instead of the official logo of the national police force, a call to murder anarchists?”, the website Taranis went on to ask. When spoken in French, the letters DCD are spoken as Dé Cé Dé – pronouncing the word décédé – which translates into English as deceased.
Screenshot from the website Taranis
Interviewed by CrossCheck, a police source denied this claim. “The ‘black cat’ in any team [in reference to the black cat on the badge] is the unlucky one, the one who has to do the jobs no one wants.” The source also explained the acronyms. “DCD stands for Delta-Charlie-Delta, AVP stands for an accident on public roads, and RABIO for overtime work”. This badge is not related either to an extreme right group of the prison administration according to the police source. “It is preposterous: I have worked for 28 years, and I never heard of such a thing”, affirmed a union official.
The Gendarmerie National also refutes the claim. “Saying ‘I am the black cat of the unit” shows that we are the one most likely to be subject to Murphy’s Law”, noted an officer of the Gendarmerie contacted by CrossCheck. “To say that the black cat has anything to do with anarchy, or politics in general, is far-fetched”. This has also been asserted by many comments on Facebook pages that support the police force.
Facebook comments in support of the French police force.
