The Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, proposed an experiment of "zones without identity checks" in certain districts.
This idea was swept away by the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, who pledged "solemnly before the Senate" not to apply this measure criticized on the right and in the ranks of the majority.
Prime Minister Jean Castex pledged "solemnly before the Senate and the country" on Wednesday that there "will be no areas without identity checks", reacting to a request for "experiments" in certain neighborhoods issued by the Defender of rights.
This constitutes "an independent authority" but "it so happens that the government of the Republic is also independent of the Defender of Rights", he declared during questions to the government in the Senate.
"There are not and there will be no zones without identity checks, in accordance with the laws of the Republic."
Government "disapproves"
"The Defender of Rights is in her role when she makes proposals" and "we give the greatest respect to the institutions, to the people who run them, especially when we have appointed them", Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday. of the Council of Ministers.
But "we disapprove" the idea "of suspending controls in certain territories in France" and it is therefore not "a proposal" which will be "followed by the government", added the spokesman of the government, shortly before the intervention of Jean Castex.
Friday, Claire Hédon recalled that her body, which observes in particular the respect for the ethics of the security forces, has long requested that "experiments" be carried out in certain neighborhoods, such as the end of identity checks, "which may become unbearable for some young people ".
The defense of Claire Hédon on Europe 1
This declaration made several police unions react like Alliance, which accused it of wanting to create "lawless zones", but also, in a hollow, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin who declared Monday in Poissy, in the Yvelines, that "all the police are at home in the Republic".
"I never wanted to end identity checks" or question the presence of the police in sensitive areas, defended Claire Hédon on Tuesday on Europe 1. "Of course we need checks when there is a breach of public order, when there is suspicious behavior, when there is a requisition from the prosecutor ... But that does not mean permanently controlling the identity ", qualified the Defender of Rights at the microphone of Sonia Mabrouk.
Opposed police unions
Police unions have expressed strong opposition to this proposal.
"The problem in our neighborhoods is not the police. Do not facilitate the 'work' of delinquents by creating lawless areas," replied in a leaflet Alliance, one of the main unions among peacekeepers. .
“The next time the police meet a gang on their way to an armed punitive expedition, will they look away?” Synergie-Officiers wondered on Twitter, accusing the Defender of Rights of being “definitely off the ground” and of live "in a parallel world of sores".
"Delusional idea", "terrible retreat", "defender of lawlessness": several elected officials from the right and from the majority have also criticized this proposal.
The president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse (Libres !, ex-LR) said on LCI "totally unfavorable" to the proposal, considering that "reestablishing the link between the police and the population" goes through " the on-board cameras "which allow" to be sure that it does not slip ".