• The Ministers of the Interior and Justice were visiting on Sunday to highlight the special unaccompanied minor unit set up in 2019 in Bordeaux.

  • They were pleased with the results it has achieved and want to duplicate the model in other regions.

  • The president of the Department of Gironde insisted, in a press release, on denouncing the term “delinquent unaccompanied minors” which casts opprobrium “on the immense well-integrated majority”.

The Ministers of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and of Justice, Eric Dupont-Moretti, on Sunday praised "the police-justice synergy" and their "decisive action" in the management of unaccompanied minors, during a trip in Bordeaux, where a special “MNA” unit has existed since 2019.

Decline in crime

“Thanks to two essential texts, the Juvenile Justice Code (September 2021) and the so-called Repsi law (Criminal liability and internal security, January 2022), which police and magistrates have seized together, the results are more than impressive: 700 unaccompanied minors arrested, many of whom are now identified and judged quickly, and a significant drop in delinquency with a drop in referrals (of these people) of 58%”, he added.

“Where before, 200 unaccompanied minors refused to take fingerprints (digital), which prevented them from being identified and therefore condemned, we have gone to 50 because we have made this taking compulsory and today justice strongly condemns those who refuse it,” explained Gérald Darmanin.

The MNA Unit is primarily tasked with identifying MNAs and dismantling the organized gang crime networks that exploit them.

"We are going to extend this Bordeaux good practice to other cities", assured Gérald.

Darmanin, who came with the Director General of the National Police Frédéric Veaux.

Amalgam between unaccompanied minors and delinquents

Present at this visit, Jean-Luc Gleyze, president of the Gironde department denounces in a press release "the amalgam too often made against unaccompanied minors, called "MNA delinquents", thus casting shame on the immense well-integrated majority”.

He recalls that an unaccompanied minor is a foreign minor without legal representatives on French territory who must normally present himself for an assessment which makes it possible to confirm, via the prosecution, his status as a minor.

If this is the case, it is then entrusted to the department of Gironde, which supports it in a place of reception.

"This support generally allows a training course leading to professional and social integration, very often with exemplary careers", specifies the Department.

Currently, 800 former unaccompanied minors benefit from a young adult contract.

For Jean-Luc Gleyze, the term MNA cell is inappropriate.

She takes care of certain young people, captured by mafia networks which place them under addiction, and who do not show up for assessment and whom we try to prevent from committing pickpocketing and assault.

The president of the department took advantage of this visit to request additional resources from the Judicial Protection of Youth, so that it can carry out its support missions for juvenile offenders.

Currently 5,800 children are cared for by the Department, including 1,200 unaccompanied minors.

On Friday, some sixty associations, including the League for Human Rights, Doctors of the World and the Syndicate of the Judiciary, had called for them to be "urgently protected", denouncing "the lack of institutions" which would lead to their " put on the street”.

They also castigated the speeches of “fantasies” on UAMs, “in favor of political displays of “fight against immigration””.

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  • Bordeaux

  • Minor

  • Delinquency

  • Aquitaine