Wilfried Devillers 10:39 a.m., November 09, 2022

Every day, Europe 1 looks at an idea that improves your daily life.

This morning, direction Sarthe where a system of citizen participation has been set up.

This is a system in which local residents join forces with the police to fight against crime, and in particular burglaries. 

For its new daily meeting, Europe 1 is interested this Wednesday in citizen participation.

The fear of finding his house or apartment burglarized.

A trauma will tell you those who have experienced it.

To avoid this, municipalities rely on cooperation between residents and police.

This is the principle of what is called citizen participation, a system set up in several departments, including that of Sarthe where Europe 1 visited.

Surveillance and link with the gendarmerie

In the residential area where Valérie and her family are based, a series of thefts have taken place in recent months.

"There was a burglary while the person was away on vacation. I still had a lump in my stomach before returning, I wondered if I was going to find my house empty," she explains.

The young woman therefore joined the citizen participation system, a group of twelve inhabitants responsible for being vigilant in the town.

"Our objective is to reveal to the gendarmes if we have seen anything, individuals, strange things", adds Valérie.

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It is above all a question of opening the eye.

No question of rounds, insists the mayor, Philippe Richard.

"It's not a militia, it's really the person who is in contact with the gendarmerie services. The goal is to prevent, to participate in the fact that the population feels safe on a daily basis", underlines the elected official.

Johanna lives in a rural area, outside the town.

If she sees the initiative in a positive light, she also considers that it is not enough.

"The solution would be to bring more gendarmes back to the small towns as there were before. But I also know that they can't be everywhere either," she laments.

The nearest gendarmerie is about ten kilometers from Saint-Cosme-en-Vairais.