A helicopter. Seven drones. The sky was charged, last weekend, above the opponents of the motorway project between Toulouse and Castres. Two days earlier, the decree “relating to the implementation of image processing by means of capture devices installed on aircraft for administrative police missions” had been published in Official newspaper. After a three-year legal battle marked by multiple appeals filed, in particular by La Quadrature du Net, the overflight of processions by police drones has thus become legal.
Another picture. Sainte-Soline, this time. Gendarmes, armed with grenade launchers and caparisoned Robocop style, are perched on quads. A novelty, these quads. Half child’s toy, half tank. “The equivalent of the Brav-M for the countryside”explains a commissioner who prefers to remain anonymous.
Images of these light and fast vehicles quickly made the rounds on social networks. The Minister of the Interior, after having denied, ended up recognizing that, yes, shots had been made from these machines.
Muzzle social protest
It is also in Sainte-Soline that the “coding marker” was used on a massive scale, a chemical liquid invisible to the naked eye which, once sprayed, remains detectable for several days using a lamp. special. “Individuals sprayed will no longer be able to say that they were not present in the demonstrations”rejoices a policeman. “This filing prevents nothing, it proves nothing, protests Bastien Le Querrec, for La Quadrature du Net. It is a massive surveillance deployment intended to deter protesters. »
In principle reserved for the administrative police (whose mission is to prevent disturbances to public order), the data collected can then be transmitted to the judicial police, responsible for repression.
Surveillance drones. Police quads. Coding marker. When it comes to muzzling a possible social protest, the imagination is in power. And the means follow. The use of facial recognition algorithms, on the occasion of the next Olympic Games, in 2024, in Paris, is one more illustration of this.
At the ministry’s innovation sub-directorate, we focus on the “non-lethal” or “reduced lethality” weapons of the future
Since 2019, to anticipate its needs, the Ministry of the Armed Forces has asked science fiction authors to imagine the disaster scenarios of tomorrow. The Red Team project does not yet have its equivalent in the Interior but, at the innovation sub-directorate of the ministry, we are phosphorizing on the “non-lethal” or “reduced lethality” weapons of the future. “It’s exciting to see what’s being done everywhere, says one of its officials. We study all the possibilities but we do not retain everything. »
Thus, the “immobilizing net”, tried in particular in Japan, did not pass the test bar. Not effective enough. “We can’t throw it far enough”, regrets this policeman. Used during the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002, incapacitating gases seemed more promising. “They turned out to be deadly, we gave it up. » In general, he says, “we censor ourselves on gases with neurological effects. In terms of image, it is impossible”.
Although denied by the testimonies of demonstrators and videos of police violence, this official is formal. “When you start using a non-lethal weapon, it’s because the demonstration has degenerated and you want to disperse it. »
The goal, he says, “it’s to stop an offense while limiting the risk of injury”. “Whenever an incident occurs, adds this same official, we are working to improve things, for example by reducing the powder load. »
At Milipol, thousands of exhibitors come from all over the world to promote their novelties
Every two years, under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior, the Milipol exhibition is held, dedicated to the security and internal security of States. The opportunity for thousands of exhibitors from all over the world to promote their new products – the Milipol Innovation Awards even reward the most daring. A particularly juicy market.
In France, according to the Observatory of the industrial sector of security, its turnover reached 29.7 billion euros in 2019 and, for ten years, its average annual growth has exceeded 5%. In 2017, after an alert from Amnesty International, a stand had to pack up. Chinese companies were blandly promoting an instrument of torture: electric handcuffs…
Two days of training to use a Taser
While waiting for the toys of the future, the good old incapacitating tools hold the upper hand. Tasers, stun grenades, tear gas… from demonstration to demonstration, their use is constantly increasing. For researcher Paul Rocher (1), the purchase of non-lethal weapons became massive with the appearance of the Flash-Ball in 1995. “We started to equip the Raid and the BAC with it. And then it became widespread. »
Over the past twenty-five years, orders from the Ministry of the Interior have steadily increased in this area. At breakneck speed. “Between 2012 and 2017, police and gendarmerie combined, the number of non-lethal weapons increased by 75%. Without counting ammunition, we went from 13,305 weapons to 23,328”notes Paul Rocher.
The handling of each of these weapons is accompanied by express training, both theoretical and technical. According to data from Place Beauvau, it takes two days of initial training to learn how to use a Taser, six hours for an LBD, four hours for a grenade launcher, one hour for a de-encirclement grenade. “The initial training is good, welcomes however a former director of the police. But continuing education needs to be improved. »
Logical consequence of the escalation: the multiplication of injuries
As a corollary to this race for equipment, the budget for the “forces of order” is constantly rising. Adopted in the fall, the planning law of the Ministry of the Interior thus plans to allocate to the police and the gendarmerie, for the next five years, the modest sum of 15 billion euros. It will be added to the annual budget: 23 billion euros for the ministry’s “security” mission alone.
Another consequence of this logic of escalation: the multiplication of injuries. Emergency physician at Beaujon Hospital, Doctor Kamel Touabi has lost count of skull fractures, facial trauma and even mutilation related to the use of “non-lethal” weapons.
Demonstration after demonstration, the reports of the street medics keep the accounts of the wounded: 25,000 between the yellow vests and the pension reform of 2019. “Obviously, the police have easy access”, notes Kamel Touabi. What Paul Rocher confirms: “All weapons combined, from 2009 to 2018, the number of shots was multiplied by 9”.
“Non-lethal weapons are not a substitute for traditional firearms. They add to it.”, says the researcher. Faced with the demonstrators, police and gendarmes thus keep their pistols or rifles. With the risks of skid that they imply.
In Mayotte, on the sidelines of “Operation Wuambushu”, CRS 8 police officers used their automatic pistols. Twelve shots” to the ground and to scare away”, According to testimonies reported by the newspaperthe world. The same evening, on a television set, the vice-president of the departmental council of Mayotte launched a call for murder against young Comorian immigrants.“I weigh my words, maybe I have to kill some. »
2023-04-27 07:22:27
#Policing #future
