Saint-Dizier (France) (AFP)

Prime Minister Jean Castex on Monday announced an increase in the budget of the Ministry of the Interior "of more than 900 million euros" in 2022, in addition to some 2.5 billion additional for the period of 2017 and 2021.

Mr. Castex also affirmed that the promise of President Emmanuel Macron to create 10,000 police and gendarme positions during his five-year term would be "kept", with the "885 additional jobs to be created in 2022", during a trip in Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne).

"My Government, like the one that preceded it, has put security at the top of its priorities," he insisted.

The Prime Minister, who was accompanied by the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin and the Secretary of State for Biodiversity Bérangère Abba, made these announcements during the signing of an "unprecedented commitment charter, around a + urban and rural security territory (TSUR) + ".

With Mr. Darmanin, "we openly demand a public security policy which starts from the territories and passes through the territories and which is based on a bond of trust" to "ensure more effectively the preeminent sovereign responsibilities of the State".

"The situation, it is true, required our collective action. Because we are here at the heart of a real crossroads, that of the triangle between three communes - Vitry le François in the Marne, Bar-le-Duc in the Meuse and Saint- Dizier - and a pool of life at the confluence of three departments ".

"It is also, unfortunately, a vector of delinquency", explained Mr. Castex.

"This delinquency is not only a real plague for the local population, but it also reveals organized networks, which attack the material of the building sites and the agricultural tools", causing "regularly violence, sometimes extreme", as the one "which led to the arrest of 16 Chechen nationals", added Mr. Castex.

© 2021 AFP