Chambery (AFP)

The issue of police personnel emerged Monday at the heart of the debates during the first trip to the region of the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin since the launch of his "Beauvau de la sécurité".

For an hour and a half, the minister exchanged with gendarmes and police officers invited to the Groupement of departmental gendarmerie of Chambéry (Savoie).

"Be very direct".

The request came from the minister himself at the start of the meeting, prompting many questions.

"If I finish the presidential term at the Ministry of the Interior, there will be more staff in the police stations than when the president was elected", noted Mr. Darmanin.

But, he said, calling for "a frank discussion", "you can't ask for more training, more rest time and more staff. I don't know how to do this equation."

Among the lines of thought was the definition of "delinquency territories" which would dictate the distribution of staff in the police and gendarmerie.

Gérald Darmanin also raises the question of the "undue tasks" required of the staff, with a few examples: "Why are people in uniform welcoming the public in the police stations? Likewise for the surveillance of police custody or the viewing of the cameras. video protection? ".

The minister also proposed to block the workforce in the west of the country, considered overstaffed - citing Biarritz and La Rochelle in particular - to allocate more resources to under-resourced regions.

He said he wanted to work with local elected officials to reserve a share of social housing for gendarmes and police, places in nurseries or even job opportunities for their spouses.

"It is a social contract that we carry".

Returning to the Michel Zecler affair, the music producer beaten up by the police in November, the Minister of the Interior pointed to the responsibility of management.

"In the images, there is not a manager. Whereas a manager is a manager in service. We have to put the role of management back into our operation. If no one is responsible for anything, then it's a mess".

And to add: "we can say that justice is lax, but the truth is that our procedures are too often bad".

The choice of Savoie as the starting point for his tour de France was decided in response to a promise the minister had made to mountain CRS, affected by the death of five rescuers in a helicopter crash in December near Albertville, to come back "in a less dramatic moment, to discuss".

In a border town with a high cost of living, he recognized the difficulty of retaining the workforce and called for "social work", "in the heart of Beauvau of security", to stabilize officials.

In Oyonnax, the last stop on his Rhône-Alpes journey, Mr. Darmanin announced the creation of six additional police stations.

This small industrial town of 22,000 inhabitants had experienced an unusual episode of urban violence in November.

The minister also announced the arrival "from this summer of a new CRS unit" specializing in urban riots and capable of being dispatched in a few hours to lend a hand to local police stations.

© 2021 AFP