• The metropolis of Montpellier will acquire a transport police.

  • This new system will be staffed with 42 agents, but, taking into account the leave and the days of training, they will be 15 simultaneously in the field on a daily basis.

  • In the opposition, some elected officials find that this is insufficient.

The metropolis of Montpellier (Hérault) will acquire a transport police. It will benefit all 31 municipalities in the community from 2023, the metropolitan council said on Monday. It is the third inter-municipal authority in France to have such a system. The agglomeration of Orléans created one in 2004, with 15 agents. In Nantes, this structure, which had 16 police officers when it was created in January, now has around twenty. Before the end of the year, it will increase to 32 agents.

“Young people who are afraid, when the trams are the object of stone throwing, the elderly who have their necklaces snatched or their credit cards stolen.

It is for these people that a transport police is created ”, confides Julie Frêche (PS), the elected representative in transport.

"That those who need to go to work by transport feel safe," says Michaël Delafosse.

What elected official has never heard this sentence: "I do not take public transport, I do not feel safe".

We provide an answer.

If we remain in a situation of inertia, it is the worries of the most fragile people that will continue to grow.

"

Astonishing, for a mayor PS?

Not really

It is therefore a mayor PS, attached, to "respect for the rule" and "authority", who sets up one of the first transport police in France. It was even a campaign promise. Astonishing? Today, not really, according to political scientist Michel Crespy. "The left realized that the entire electorate, including the left, demanded more security," says the researcher

.

There was a tendency, on the left, a little libertarian, a little May-1968 ... But today, a certain number of Socialists want to respond to the demands of the voters, and find that they are right. It is no longer even considered a straight line inside the PS. "

In Montpellier, the workforce will eventually be “42 full-time equivalents”.

But, in reality, only 15 agents will be present in the field, on a daily basis.

In the tram, this new police will benefit from three teams of three police officers, supported by three to five controllers of the Tam.

In the bus, two teams of two policemen, with three controllers.

Two dog handlers will be at their disposal on the ground.

This structure will be present "7 days a week", with "a ramp-up between 12 noon and 11 p.m., from Wednesday to Saturday," says Jean-Pierre Rico (UDI), the mayor of Pérols, responsible for leading this project.

An “under-resourced” police force for Alenka Doulain

The missions of this police will be to "secure network users, in addition to Tam agents, maintain good order, tranquility, cleanliness, fight against fraud and incivility, fight against violence against women and protect the staff of the Tam ", confides Jean-Pierre Rico, who hopes that this device will" reassure users and dissuade "delinquents. These police officers will be armed: they will have in particular automatic pistols and pistols with electric impulse. They will also be equipped with pedestrian cameras and bulletproof vests.

For Alenka Doulain (various left), main voice of the opposition, this police force is "under-endowed".

"Do you really think that these 42 agents will be enough to prevent, deter, stop crimes and incivility in transport?" Asks the elected representative of the We Are movement.

When we count the time off and rest, which is quite normal, we end up with 15 agents present simultaneously.

For the movement We are, it is "derisory for our vast transport network".

A "ramp-up" in 2025

Alenka Doulain proposes, in addition to the creation of this new police, “the recruitment of mediators. There are only six today for the size of our metropolis. We believe that we must choose mediation, which has proved its worth in other cities. "They could in particular, she said," participate in the prevention of tensions and dangers facing our network. Jackie Galabrun-Boulbes (various right), mayor of Saint-Drézéry, also points to the number of agents, which she considers "insufficient".

Before being officially created, this police must, however, be enacted by majority vote in all the municipal councils of the 31 municipalities.

It will then be launched in 2023, "with a rise in power, notes the elected representative in transport, in 2025, for the arrival of line 5 of the tram".

Its cost: three million euros per year, for the metropolis.

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  • security

  • Languedoc-Roussillon

  • Bus

  • Police

  • Tram

  • Transport

  • Public transport

  • Montpellier