Gérald Darmanin maintains the entry into force of his disputed reform at the end of 2023

Gérald Darmanin has decided to maintain the entry into force of his reform of the national police at the end of 2023, the section of which devoted to the judicial police is hotly contested, the interior ministry announced on Friday March 3.

The latter rejected the Senate’s proposal to establish a moratorium until the end of the 2024 Olympic Games. “The objective is to be ready for the Olympics”, we commented on Place Beauvau.

Gérald Darmanin conceded the creation of a post of interdepartmental director (DIPN) for the border police and the PJ, while public security and intelligence will be under the control of a departmental director (DDPN). The departmental level, considered unsuitable for the PJ by the information missions of the National Assembly and the Senate but desired by Mr. Darmanin, is thus confirmed.

Complex reform

In a letter addressed to the trade unions, the minister evokes the “concerns” expressed by the Pjistes, in particular on the department, but notes “their support” in “their vast majority” for the principle of the reform.

“In order to take these fears into account,” he writes, “I decided to retain the principle of an interdepartmental organization” in certain territories. Thus “in each department where specialized services are set up (the PJ and the PAF) with a broader competence than the department, these services will be attached to an interdepartmental director”. “These services,” he promised, “will retain the fullness of their current territorial jurisdiction.”

The reform supposed to simplify the organization of the national police by putting an end to the “silos” (organization according to the sectors, editor’s note), appears very complex, with departmental, interdepartmental, zonal and national levels.

Union reaction

Grégory Joron, from the SGP police unit union, noted an “opening” since Gérald Darmanin took into account their “two red lines by opening a supra-departmental level and guaranteeing a budget specific to the PJ”. “But we remain worried about the state of the investigation sector as a whole with many colleagues who are suffering,” he said.

For the Alliance union, Fabien Vanhemelryck was pleased that “the specificities and skills of the PJ” have been “preserved”.

The ministry sent the unions a map on the articulation between the DIPN and the DDPN with a particularity for the North and the Pas-de-Calais, electoral land of Gérald Darmanin. The DIPNs of Lille and Arras have jurisdiction over PJ in both departments. “We took into account the specificity of this pool of crime,” the ministry explained.

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