Fumes at the Berck police station: the police transferred to other premises

Europe 1 with AFP 5:12 p.m., June 20, 2022, modified at 5:12 p.m., June 20, 2022

The staff of the Berck police station (Pas-de-Calais), including around sixty police officers, will be transferred to other premises, due to "suspicious odors, seeming to cause respiratory and skin problems", announced Monday the prefecture, faced with a problem that has affected these police officers since 2013. According to the prefecture, these odors have again been observed at the Berck police station "for several weeks" while this phenomenon had "not been observed since 2017".

"As a precaution, all of the staff of the Berck police station will be transferred, during the month of July 2022, to the premises of the former public finance center", she wrote in a press release.

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New police station by 2024

"It's a great relief for everyone", and "especially for those who have not taken sick leave and still continued to go to work every day with a lump in their stomach", rejoiced with the AFP one of the police, stressing that a third of the workforce was on sick leave. 

The Minister of the Interior announced in mid-May the construction of a new police station by 2024, for around seven million euros.

According to testimonies collected in May by AFP, these fumes have been felt since 2013 but the symptoms, which affect the "vast majority of staff", have become "more intense" and "almost permanent" since this winter.

A first transfer in 2024

In 2014, after several discomforts, the prefecture had already transferred around sixty agents to temporary buildings, the time to analyze the air, but the searches had yielded nothing and the police had returned to the old premises.

In its press release on Monday, the prefecture announces that the general secretariat for the administration of the Ministry of the Interior has commissioned "a specialized company to carry out an environmental survey on the site".

Medical analyzes have also been prescribed for all police officers.

Their results should be known in July.

"We are still waiting for medical explanations, on the causes of these symptoms", of the visit of a specialist doctor for example, insists the same policeman of the police station, who does not wish to give his name.

For the departmental secretary of the SGP Police-FO Unit, Arnaud Moreau, this relocation constitutes a "very correct solution for the health and working conditions of civil servants".

"We will ensure that the police stay (in the premises of the former public finance center) if another solution is not found" and the source of the problem not identified, he adds.