- An officer from the Paris Prefecture of Police killed four of his colleagues in October 2019. The national anti-terrorist prosecutor's office took up this investigation.
- The deputies of the commission of inquiry created following this attack presented, this Wednesday, a first assessment of their hearings to understand the dysfunctions which led to the attack.
- According to them, the DRPP was not able to detect the radicalization of this administrative agent and even shows "amateurism" in this area.
Eric Ciotti does not mince words. Mickaël Harpon, the computer scientist from the Prefecture of Police who killed four officials on October 3, 2019, "should never have, given the signs he emitted, remained in the intelligence department". "There was no place, there was no place," said the chairman of the parliamentary inquiry commission created following the attack at a press conference. For more than an hour, this Wednesday, the elected LR of the Alpes-Maritimes, with the LREM deputy from Gironde, Florent Boudié, checked the DRPP (intelligence department of the police prefecture) to which the official belonged. An intelligence service where "the detection and prevention of radicalization were insufficient".
The members of this commission, which will make their final report in April, were even "flabbergasted" by "the accumulation of major dysfunctions, structural, functional and organizational" within this directorate comprising 800 agents, all with secret-defense skills. Over the course of the thirty hearings they have already conducted, the deputies discovered that Mickaël Harpon had indeed shown signs of radicalization "which should have been taken into account" by his hierarchy, continues Eric Ciotti. He cites in particular his "religious marriage" which took place in 2008 or in 2009, "his conversion to Islam" and the "modification of his behavior". "He no longer kissed some of his female colleagues," denounces the elected official.
No “vigilance culture”
And there is "this very serious incident", which occurred a few months after the January 2015 attacks. While one of his colleagues consults the press, Mickaël Harpon tells him that the journalists of Charlie hebdo "should never have caricatured" the Prophet Muhammad. Before launching: "it's well done!" There followed a lively discussion. Officials do report this incident to the person "in charge of collecting reports of radicalization" at the Prefecture of Police, but only "informally". Similarly, a section chief, "who was informed by one of his subordinates of the altercation, did not send the information back to his hierarchy".
"Nothing has been done, nothing has been formalized, nothing has really been reassembled, it seems, to ensure that these elements are taken into account", laments Eric Ciotti, regretting the absence of a "culture of vigilance" within this yet sensitive direction. "Mickaël Harpon should not have been recruited, he would not have stayed at the DRPP if the reporting, detection and vigilance processes applied in other intelligence services, the DGSE or the DGSI, had been implemented in this service ”, adds Florent Boudié, emphasizing the“ amateurism ”reigning in this direction.
The two deputies noted that with the arrival of Françoise Bilancini at the head of the DRPP in April 2017, there had been "behavioral changes". But "we started from far away," said the member for Gironde. Before adding: "You must raise the security level of the DRPP or integrate its internal security mission within the DGSI". The two parliamentarians suggested that their preference was to join the DGSI.
Difficulty of "characterizing radicalization"
Since the attack on 3 October 2019, 46 radicalization of reports were forwarded to the Commissioner of Police, Didier Lallement, and four officials have been suspended "time to audit," says 20 Minutes a senior official of the Prefecture police. According to the latter, it was "almost impossible" to detect the radicalization of Mickaël Harpon. “His wife is not radicalized and has been released. He was not on a journey of radicalism, whatever religion he had chosen. There is also a part of psychic subsidence even if the operating mode is characteristic of the attacks. "
And this close to the case highlights the difficulty of "characterizing radicalization" in the police ranks. "We have reading grids that are not necessarily appropriate, at the same time, we cannot suspect all the weak people ... Even if that is what we should do." "
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- Terrorism
- Paris
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- Radicalization
- Attack at the Paris police headquarters
- Police