Police officers in Paris, in January 2018. (illustration) -

Theo Duval / SIPA

  • Guest of the show "Brunet Direct" on LCI, Monday, September 7, criminologist Xavier Raufer said that France had stopped communicating its burglary statistics to Europol and Interpol since 2017.

  • This turnaround could be explained, according to him, by bad figures. 

  • However, neither Europol nor Interpol compile the criminal data of its member states: France has therefore never intended to provide such figures, except in the context of specific criminal investigations.

"Confidence comes through transparency."

By evoking, in recent days, the possibility of a monthly press briefing on the results of the police, Gérald Darmanin has not only raised the concern of increased pressure by a policy of figures: he also lent the side of his ministry to a criticism of criminologist Xavier Raufer on LCI, Monday, September 7.

# Insecurity:


X. Raufer, criminologist: "In terms of the transmission of criminal data, the Minister of the Interior is cheating (...) Since 2017, France has not communicated to Europol and Interpol the figures for burglaries in France because they are awful "# La26 pic.twitter.com/eap6oLwxlp

- LCI (@LCI) September 7, 2020

“When it comes to the transmission of criminal data, the Minister of the Interior cheats so much and more.

[…] It's been since 2017 […] that France has not communicated, neither to Europol nor to Interpol, the figures of the number of burglaries in France, because they are awful ”, he thus affirmed during the meeting. 'a sequence taken up on Twitter - in particular by Jean Messiha, member of the national office of the National Rally (RN).

➡ # Insecurity: on figures @ ericbrunet: "If what you are saying is true, then we are not in the policy of numbers, but of lies?"



X. Raufer: "The real number of burglaries in France in 2018 is 490,000, that's more than 1,300 per day"



📺 # BrunetDirect pic.twitter.com/sN7eA3W3tg

- LCI (@LCI) September 7, 2020

And if these “revelations” were not enough on their own to arouse the emotion of the televiewers, the indignation, in the wake, of the journalist Eric Brunet, intended to underline the extent of this assertion: “We are in a democracy at this point opaque, who does not give a damn about citizens, that we do not communicate, like that, the figures?

"

However, the alleged "opacity" around these figures is nothing shocking ... since the two international institutions in question simply do not communicate this type of statistics.

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, the Information and Communication Service of the National Police (Sicop) explains it as follows: “Neither Interpol nor Europol is intended to centralize the crime statistics of each Member State.

Their aim is to facilitate international cooperation.

In this context, they can, if necessary, send a request for analysis to their member states to obtain strategic data and France responds systematically.

"

If Interpol had not followed up on our requests before the publication of the article, Europol, the European agency specializing in the suppression of crime, confirms to us, through its spokesperson, this mode of operation: “We don't give aggregate statistics on types of crimes or misdemeanors.

The exchange of information between member states is done on a voluntary basis, there is no mandatory sharing mechanism: states are free to decide what they share or not.

"

“In addition, these elements must meet specific criteria to be accepted.

In particular, there must be involvement of organized crime and at least two Member States must be targeted by the same group so that Europol can initiate an investigation on the subject.

Burglaries involving two people in a village, for example, cannot be taken into account, ”continues Europol.

Burglary figures, accessible to all

The nature of the exchanges between France and Interpol like Europol has therefore not changed since 2017: it has always been the same.

In 2019, the European agency congratulated itself on having arrested a group of burglars with the help of France and Romania - a year after Interpol communicated on a similar operation in France.



"In recent months, during the Covid-19 epidemic, Interpol and Europol have regularly asked France to know the impact of confinement on crime, and in particular burglaries," adds Sicop.

Finally, the figures for burglaries are far from being hidden from the public since they are accessible, like all other crimes and offenses recorded by the police since 1996, on the government's open data site. 

The whole problem with data relating to delinquency, however, lies in the way in which they are recorded (or not): in 2014, an internal report from the Ministry of the Interior revealed that the police headquarters, in particular, had developed a whole system to reduce these statistics under the five-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy.

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