It was announced as early as October: for the Olympic Games, Gérald Darmanin wanted a “zero crime” objective. The details of this plan are now being put into action, with a significant increase in resources on the police and justice side, in Paris and near suburbs.
In mid-April, Gérald Darmanin announced the assignment of “2,800 additional peacekeepers in the Paris conurbation for the year 2023”. There should be “500 from May, 436 in September, 1,200 in November and 656 in December”, added the minister in a letter addressed to the prefect of police Laurent Nuñez.
“Saturate the public space with police”
Laurent Nuñez recently detailed the Minister’s intention in a newspaper interview The Parisian : “Today, we operate a lot in the inner suburbs, on the future sites of the Olympic Games and in sensitive places in Paris such as the Champ-de-Mars, the Trocadéro or in eastern Paris. The idea is to ramp up and be more and more present in the inner suburbs and at all the tourist sites. The closer we get to the Olympics, the more we will saturate the public space with police. »
Illustration of this doctrine: last Monday, fourteen people were arrested in a police operation against a deal point located near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis.
Clean up the territory for a matter of image
These police actions necessarily have an impact on the justice side, which sees an increase in the number of police custody and proceedings. Asked about this in mid-March, the Bobigny prosecutor told 20 minutes having noted since the end of 2022 an increase of 55 to 88% in police custody for narcotics. He was worried, at a time when “his” court is already saturated, of not being able to absorb the increased activity of the Olympic Games, when nearly half of the events will take place in Seine-Saint- Dennis.
“And the activity will only increase”, specified Eric Mathais, who requested additional means in magistrates, contract workers and clerks for the start of the 2023 school year. The court should obtain a significant increase in its means, according to our information. .
The implicit objective of the State is to “clean up” the Ile-de-France territory, to give a good image of the country. The Bobigny prosecutor recognizes this without difficulty: “There is a question of image. The department of Seine-Saint-Denis is one of the most criminogenic in the country. It is a question of “attacking delinquency and particularly the phenomenon of monopolization of public space: deal points, street vending, stations where one feels insecure…”, summed up at the end of March Michel Lavaud, territorial director of local security for Seine-Saint-Denis, which depends on the Paris police headquarters.
In addition to the increase in arrests, police custody and imprisonment, the prefect of the region is also counting on sending migrants outside the Paris region. The State is in the process of opening 10 airlocks in the region, to relieve congestion in Ile-de-France.