Judicial police: hundreds of police and magistrates gathered against the reform

Europe 1 with AFP 4 p.m., October 17, 2022

"Don't touch my PJ": hundreds of judicial police investigators hostile to the reform of their sector gathered everywhere in France on Monday to try, with the support of magistrates and lawyers, to convince Gérald Darmanin to give up his project.

The inscription "judicial liquidation" or portraits of Georges Clemenceau, the founder of the "Tiger brigades", ancestor of the PJ, a tear of red blood in the eye, taped to their vests: the opponents met at the midday "in 36 cities", according to the National Association of the Judicial Police (ANPJ).

The reform, wanted by the Minister of the Interior, plans to place all the department's police services - intelligence, public security, border police and PJ - under the authority of a single Departmental Director of the National Police (DDPN ), depending on the prefect.

A risk of "leveling down" pointed out

The agents of the PJ, in charge of the most serious crimes and investigations, would be integrated into an investigation sector with their colleagues in charge of delinquency on a daily basis.

Critics of the project point to a risk of "leveling down" and strengthening the weight of the prefect, under the supervision of the executive, in the investigations.

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In Nanterre, 200 to 300 civil servants from the central offices of the PJ gathered behind a banner: "the offices against the DDPN".

Magistrates from the specialized interregional jurisdictions (JIRS), in robes, joined them.

In Lyon, around 150 police officers, magistrates or lawyers gathered in front of the courthouse.

150 to 200 demonstrators in Montpellier

What worries us the most "is a loss of resources and being saturated by the mass litigation currently being dealt with by public security", declared Yann Bauzin, president of the ANPJ.

"If we come to the reinforcement of colleagues who are saturated with 300 procedures on their desk, I who currently carry out investigations which sometimes last several years and who have ten files on my desk, it is quite obvious that one more file, c It's 10% of my time that is distracted", he detailed.

In the south-east of France, 80 demonstrators were present in Corsica or Nice, where the LR deputy for the Alpes-Maritimes Eric Ciotti came to "support this protest movement".

In front of the Hérault prefecture in Montpellier, there were 150 to 200 demonstrators.

"The first feedback from the pilot sites (of the reform) in the Pyrénées-Orientales and Hérault are alarming", declared Catherine Konstantinovitch, president of the chamber at the Montpellier Court of Appeal and regional delegate of the Union of Judges (USM).

"The judicial authority is identified as a simple flow manager, the general policy priorities defined by the prosecutors are not respected and justice has lost its specific interlocutors in the judicial police", she lamented.

The dispute has been rising since the dismissal of Éric Arella

In Strasbourg, around 60 police officers and around twenty magistrates mobilized.

They were also around fifty in Brest and Lille, where the magistrates displayed signs "don't touch my PJ".

Marion Cackel, investigating judge of the JIRS of Lille and president of the French association of investigating magistrates, took the floor to denounce the reform and the collapse of the means of the investigators for twenty years, "mistreated, underpaid" .

“There are 17,000 OPJs in France for 3.9 million new procedures per year, not counting stocks”.

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Since the end of August, the dispute has been rising in the ranks of the 5,600 PJ staff.

It widened on October 7 with the dismissal of Eric Arella, the respected boss of the PJ in the southern zone, which caused an outcry.

Éric Arella paid the stormy visit, the day before, of the director general of the national police, Frédéric Veaux, in Marseille.

Coming to defend the reform, the latter had to cross a "hedge of dishonor" made up of 200 investigators opposed to the project.

The video of the crossing of this former number 2 of the PJ quickly became viral on social networks.

Two days later, Gérald Darmanin conceded some minor amendments and postponed the implementation of the project after the first half of 2023 and the resumption of discussions in mid-December after an audit.

But without however calling into question a reform according to him "courageous and essential".