French police unions have started a national campaign in protest at the "unfair treatment" of five of their colleagues, sentenced this week to prison terms of up to four years for savagely beating and sexually abusing two suspected drugs dealers in their custody.
The case, which is the subject of the first torture allegation against France to be taken up by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, is the most shocking recent example of police brutality to surface in a country whose notoriously heavy-handed officers are often criticised for violence against detainees.
"French justice has let us down," said Mr Olivier Poli, general secretary of one police union, Snop.
"What is being done to protect police officers in the course of their duty? Every day we are confronted with more violence on the streets, with policemen being shot at.
"This verdict sends entirely the wrong message - unfounded accusations of police violence have now become almost automatic for criminals in detention."
The French court in Versailles plainly did not agree. It ruled this week that Mr Ahmed Salmouni (45) and Mr Abdelmajid Madi (43) had been the victims of "organised and particularly serious police violence" by the five officers, whose behaviour was "in complete contravention of the most basic principles of a state of law, and cannot in any circumstances be justified."
The court found that during two interrogations after his arrest in 1991, Mr Selmouni was punched in the face and body, beaten with a truncheon, and had his feet severely crushed and his hair pulled. He was also threatened with a syringe and two lighted blowtorches, and forced to strip naked.
When he refused to perform oral sex on one policeman, the officer urinated in his face.
Mr Madi too was beaten repeatedly about the face and body with fists and truncheons, and received a number of heavy blows to his testicles.
"These acts were committed by police officers who embody public authority and are charged with ensuring the order and security of citizens, and respect of the fundamental rules of human rights," the ruling concluded.
"This court intends to apply the penal code in exemplary fashion."
According to an alarming report earlier this year by the Council of Europe's committee against torture, a "large proportion" of those detained in French police stations are routinely slapped, kicked and beaten with fists or truncheons, and kept tightly handcuffed for hours with their wrists behind their backs.
Many of their accounts are fully corroborated by medical records, said the report, which was based on interviews with people held in custody in Paris, Marseille and Montpellier.
It noted that 11 per cent of patients admitted to the emergency police wing of the Hotel-Dieu hospital in Paris were suffering from injuries caused by police officers - including fractured jaws, severe spinal bruising and multiple lesions. Marseille's prison hospital reported similar injuries "every two or three days".