Public services must manage and reflect the diversity of society: that of their public (users) as well as that of their agents (civil servants). Diversity in public services exercising sensitive sovereign functions (army, police, intelligence services) is essential. Democracies must be able to count on Republican security forces that respect human rights and ensure equal treatment of all their citizens and their foreign nationals. The best way to fight terrorism is to recruit security forces who respect the diversity of the population (gender, ethnic origin, religious affiliations, etc.) and who know how to use the same weapons as terrorists, inside and outside. European and Western societies are increasingly diverse. A great danger for democracies is that its security forces are infiltrated by extremist movements at the origin of an "internal" terrorism which organizes systemic violence by persecuting specific audiences (mainly from minorities) and by creating a climate of distrust among public opinion.
The concepts of general interest and public service mission are the basis of the contract that binds public service agents with the State and citizens. The intelligence services play a strategic role with the rise of extremisms (Islamists and far right. Information is their job; they are on the front line to counter and defuse disinformation campaigns (international terrorism), online delinquency (cybercrime) and attacks intended to destabilize democracies. The army, the police, and intelligence agencies are at the service of all citizens. They must be above all suspicion; questions of control and transparency are crucial in a democracy.
The institutions responsible for their control, both the spirit of the law and its application but also the proper use of public funds (fight against corruption), must be vigilant and transparent. Justice is essential; it must be able to operate in complete independence with appropriate means. In Europe, the work carried out by the Council of Europe makes it possible to monitor whether the spirit of the law is respected and whether public funds are being used properly. In France, the Constitutional Council, the Council of State or the Court of Auditors are the institutions which exercise these missions at the highest level. In Europe, the European Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors are the two supreme bodies; as EU countries rejected any idea of a European constitution in 2005, there is no equivalent to the Constitutional Council.
It is interesting to study specific examples of police violence in France, Europe and the United States (several cases hit the headlines in 2020) to measure their impact on relations between the police and their fellow citizens and to illustrate awfully specific cases, precise discriminations sometimes institutionalized system of discrimination