“White sneakers and a striped jacket”, describes a municipal agent, fixing the video of an individual selling narcotics on the sly, in front of a hotel Porte de Paris in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). The city’s urban supervision center was inaugurated this Friday, May 21, boulevard Jules-Guesde, in the presence of the prefect Georges-François Leclerc and the mayor (PS) Mathieu Hanotin.
Thanks to the fleet of 93 cameras, located mainly in the city center and at points deemed “problematic”, the six agents of the center can now observe offenses and notify the municipal police. The latter then intervenes to catch the perpetrators in the act in “a very short time”.
“The officers take down all the details of the offenses observed. Video surveillance is very useful in the fight against drug trafficking, pickpocketing, motorcycle rodeos or even the prevention of fights between gangs, ”lists Narik Iv Huot, the room manager.
This device follows the arming of the municipal police of the city recorded during the last municipal council in the fall. A measure that had aroused strong criticism among the opposition. The latter particularly underlined her fears of seeing “the municipal police replace the national police” and “thus break the trust it has with the inhabitants”.
400 cameras by 2024
At the moment, CCTV is operational from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. On average, this corresponds to 200-300 violations recorded per day. “The goal in the future is for the center to be active until 2 am. This would allow up to 500 violations to be observed per day,” calculates Narik Iv Huot.
In the coming years, the number of cameras and the number of agents will thus gradually increase. “By 2024, the center will move at the same time as the municipal police to the former premises of the national police station rehabilitated for the occasion. It will be equipped with 400 cameras – its maximum capacity – for the Olympic Games”, foresees the mayor who also plans “cooperation with donors” to ensure the safety of the inhabitants of HLMs.
For the elected, this tool allows a better knowledge of the city on the offenses but also “on the questions of prostitution or those of the place of women in the public space”. “Video surveillance fights against street harassment by remembering the facts and identifying the harassers”, he underlines.
Artificial intelligence for the “city of 2030”
In front of the images of the city which parade, Georges-François Leclerc is pleased that this device is a “powerful factor of cooperation” between the prefecture and the town hall. “As a former prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, where this question is highly developed, I am struck that this supervision center is up to the challenges”, he rejoices, recalling that it was financed to the tune of €332,000, the equivalent of one third, by the prefecture.
In the future, Mayor Mathieu Hanotin aims to go “even further” in the field of security to “create the city of 2030”. “Ultimately, we would like to use artificial intelligence software allowing, for example, to directly verbalize illegal deposits or to detect a person who falls to the ground”, he predicts.
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