Where will the 200 additional gendarmerie brigades provided for in the security orientation law be located? To answer this question, the Minister of the Interior is on tour this Thursday in Cher. Gérald Darmanin goes to the department to launch “the consultation for the whole country”.
In an interview with the press group Center France, the Minister explains that “each prefect, with the head of the gendarmerie group in his department, will bring together local elected officials to present to them the state of the strengths and weaknesses of security in the territory concerned”. “The idea”, he continues, “is that elected officials and in particular mayors, who know the field better than civil servants of the Republic, can react by expressing their agreement or their disagreement with the observation”.
First brigades “ready next summer”
Gérald Darmanin specifies that it is a question of recreating 2 to 3 gendarmerie brigades “per department by concentrating on the sectors which have gained population and on those where the public services have deserted”. The consultation phase will last “until the beginning of January” then the State will analyze the proposals with a view to announcing the locations “by March-April 2023” so that the “first brigades are ready from next summer”.
As for the premises, the minister explains that the creation of these brigades will be done “at a lower cost” by reinvesting unused public buildings. He adds that “elected officials who so wish will be able to have itinerant brigades”. The orientation and programming project of the Ministry of the Interior (LOPMI) must be debated in first reading at the beginning of October in the Senate.