The afternoon is already well underway, Wednesday November 20, at the annual congress of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), Porte de Versailles in Paris, when the subject of debate : “Municipal police, the right balance of prerogatives to find. » Many of them, from mayors of small towns to their counterparts in metropolitan areas, have come together to try to answer a fundamental question: what place should the municipal police occupy in the French security landscape of tomorrow?
The question arises as the Beauvau municipal police department is relaunched this Thursday, November 21. In April 2024, these consultations were initiated by the then Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. He was particularly considering extending the prerogatives of municipal police officers to judicial powers. But the discussions could not come to an end, interrupted by the dissolution. It was therefore the new government team which took over, embodied by Nicolas Daragon, the minister responsible for everyday security and also mayor of Valence (Drôme).
Red lines not to be crossed
The latter has already indicated that he intends to take up his predecessor’s proposal and make it the priority project for Beauvau. “The municipal police forces of today are no longer those of yesterday. The workforce today reaches 27,000 agents, in 4,000 municipalities. It is indeed the third security force in the country. But in my opinion, it is limited in its ability to intervene,” affirmed Nicolas Daragon.
Concretely, the minister considers that the prerogatives of this force are no longer in line with its concrete daily action and therefore wishes to change them. Traditionally, the municipal police are placed under the responsibility of the mayor, but do not have investigative powers. A framework inherited from the Chevènement law of April 15, 1999. The reform would grant judicial powers to municipal police officers, placing them under the authority of the public prosecutor.
Among local elected officials, the measure divides. “Be careful not to make it a second national police force”, warns Frédéric Masquelier, mayor of Saint-Raphaël (Var). He sets limits that must not be crossed: “The free administration of local authorities must remain. Each mayor has the right to have a municipal police force or not, to arm it or not. This must remain an optioninsists the man who is also co-chair of the AMF security commission. Second, we don’t want burden shifting. For example, that the municipal police be called upon to exercise national police prerogatives to make up for staffing shortages. »
Unions on the lookout
This is one of the fears of certain mayors. “My police are recovering skills that they did not have before”, deplores Hélène Geoffroy, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin (Rhône). Coming especially from Guyana where he heads the commune of Roura, Jean-Luc Labrador thinks on the contrary that this reform is going in the right direction. “Municipal police officers must have the skills of judicial police officers. In the field, when they stop an uninsured moped, they must be able to draw up the procedurehe insists. Today, they have to wait for the national police to come and pick up the individual. This gives the population the feeling that things are dragging on. »
But what do the first concerned people say? “I guarantee you that we already have enough work with the skills we currently have,” reacts to The Cross Cédric Michel, president of the municipal police defense union. “Our role is proximity. If we are in offices with judicial police skills, we will no longer be on the public highway carrying out our core business. » Cédric Michel has the feeling that the future of the sector has already been decided without them. He will not surrender to what he describes as a “masquerade which gives the illusion of negotiations”.
The unions also set their conditions. They will not accept an overhaul of prerogatives without negotiations on pensions and salaries. “No skills until the social is negotiated, approved and signed”, chants Cédric Michel. The Beauvau protagonists of the municipal police have six months to find compromises. Nicolas Daragon has set the completion date for the work at the end of March 2025.