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.
>> Find Europe Matin in replay and podcast here
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.