“Criminals must be dissuaded from acting in stations. Laurent Wauquiez, the LR president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region presented Monday a reinforced security system in stations which will be tested from January in Valence (Drôme) for a year. Then, if successful, it will be extended to four other stations: Clermont-Ferrand, Saint-Etienne, Part-Dieu and Perrache in Lyon. Places that concentrate “40% of the acts of crime committed in the region”, according to the community.
“In France, almost a third of thefts and 20% of sexual violence and assaults recorded take place during a train journey or within a radius of 750 m around a station”, adds- she.
The system called “zero crime” consists of strengthening and coordinating existing resources. In detail, this will include the deployment of “highly visible” emergency call terminals – 10 for Valencia station – which will be directly connected with the railway police, whose numbers will increase on the ground. The latter will, moreover, be supported by the presence of “private security forces”. The presence of the municipal police will also be reinforced within the perimeter of the station, as will coordination with the railway agents. Finally, security works are planned to avoid “dark corridors” conducive to attacks.
Judicial component
The other part of the system concerns the judicial part. The objective is to “provide a targeted and appropriate criminal response” by promoting “penalties and prohibition measures to appear in stations”, also promoting community service for the benefit of the SNCF. Finally, it is planned to appoint a “referring magistrate” who will be responsible for offenses committed in transport.
Since 2016, the region has made securing rail transport, for which it is responsible, a priority. Thirty million euros have already been invested in the deployment of 2,300 CCTV cameras in stations, 35 million euros have been injected to equip trains with 1,300 new cameras in addition to 4,000 already existing ones and double the number of police railway.