France moves to ban police chokeholds amid global George Floyd protests

French police will end the use of chokeholds amid international protests over the death of George Floyd.

In France, “[t]he method of seizing the neck via strangling will be abandoned and will no longer be taught in police schools,” Interior Minister Christopher Castaner said in a statement Monday, according to The Associated Press, adding “it will be now forbidden to push on the back of the neck or the neck.”

Floyd died May 25 after then-officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Chauvin faces charges of second-degree murder as well as third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, according to the wire service.

Paris police made an arrest that has drawn similar comparisons three days later, when an officer pinned a black man with his knee and shin on the man’s jaw, neck and upper chest, according to the AP.

Police use of chokeholds have been a flashpoint for the protests sweeping the country and the world after Floyd’s death.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he spoke to top officials and told Castaner to fast-track previously promised police reforms.

French activists are similarly concerned that tensions in largely nonwhite neighborhoods between civilians and police have been exacerbated during the coronavirus lockdown period.

A march in the western French city of Nantes took place Monday, with demonstrators planning further protests Tuesday.