“Our city of nearly 40,000 inhabitants is still plagued by public order issues, the resolution of which is fully within the responsibility of the State.“, explains the petition addressed a fortnight ago by the town of Bagnolet to the Paris police prefect, Laurent Nunez. “Already in 2018“, she emphasizes, “we were more than 2,000 Bagnolet residents asking the State to take its responsibilities and provide Bagnolet with a full-function police station, a police station open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week sized to respond to the challenges of our territory.”
A municipality of more than 39,000 inhabitants, Bagnolet is, in fact, attached to the Lilas police station which also covers Romainville and Pré-Saint-Gervais. That is to say a pool of 110,000 inhabitants for some 150 staff.
Closed police antenna
“We see that police numbers are decreasing. The more time passes, the fewer possibilities there are to respond to the inhabitants of the four cities“, points out Emilie Trigo, deputy mayor (PS) in particular in charge of public peace. Same observation for the reception of the public at the branch of the Lilas police station located rue Malmaison in Bagnolet. “Over the years, it became impossible to file a complaint. Another example, for the last elections, we were obliged to direct residents to Lilas to make proxies voting“, she notes.
This situation has worsened with the closure of the police station since the July riots during which it was targeted and burned. “If we do not obtain the opening of a police station, the staff would at least have to be increased to be able to welcome the public. A resident who wants to file a complaint with Lilas must wait in line for six hours.”
A premier municipal police officer
“However, we have a recurring demand from the population for a police presence on a daily basis.“, adds the elected official. “These are not serious crime problems, but nuisances that are annoying on a daily basis such as scooters that drive too fast, wrong-way traffic, improper parking, fireworks.…”, she assures.
To meet some of these expectations, the town hall has decided to create a municipal police service. But the deliberation presented to the municipal council at the beginning of July was rejected by elected officials from the majority and the opposition. “Putting more men in the place of the State means taking the risk of its disengagement“, considered Edouard Denouel, deputy in charge of environment and education, also considering that “the municipal police does not prove its effectiveness” while being an expensive tool.
Despite this setback, the city has deployed a municipal police officer since mid-September. This former public highway surveillance officer (ASVP), who passed the municipal police examination, was sworn in by the prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis. If a city does not need to vote on a resolution for the creation of a municipal police service, it must, however, vote on the creation of agent positions.
A referendum on the municipal police?
In the current state of the municipality’s staffing table, the city can create up to three municipal police officer positions. But the mayor of Bagnolet, Tony di Martino, raised the possibility of organizing a local referendum on the creation of a full-fledged service.
“I understand very well that some elected officials, including the majority, consider that police missions are the responsibility of the State and that it is up to it to ensure that the needs of citizens are met. I completely agree with him. But we are forced to note that community policing has disappeared since Sarkozy and that the number of national police is decreasing. We are the last inhabitants of Seine-Saint-Denis not to have a municipal police force. We must be pragmatic and take our responsibilities since the State does not do so. Today, I can’t wait for our petition to have enough signatories for us to open a police station“, explained Emilie Trigo.
As a concrete example, she cites the problem of inconvenient parking. “It may seem trivial, but there are around 500 sucker cars in Bagnolet. Without municipal police, the city had no jurisdiction for impounding and remained dependent on the national police who did not have the time to deal with it. We were going around in circles, without solving the problem. This is now the first mission of our municipal police officer”she observes.
However, says the elected official, repression is not the only response that the city wants to provide in terms of insecurity. Also in the works: a mediation service which will work on incivility, in conjunction with neighborhood, social and cultural centers. This new service will complement the environmental police who can report all incidents of illegal dumping.
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