Seine-Maritime is one of the departments where domestic violence and violent robberies increased the most in September, October and November 2022 compared to 2021. According to Frédéric Desguerre, national secretary of the SGP Police FO Unit, this increase is mainly due to the lack of personnel on the ground.
Seine-Maritime is one of 20 departments that concentrate 75% of crime and have been placed under surveillance by the Interior Ministry since the summer. Gérald Darmanin said on Thursday 8 December that he expects a decline in general crime in 2022, given the results obtained between September and November in these departments.
But Seine-Maritime is a bad student. 76 is one of three departments where domestic violence and violent robberies increased in September, October and November 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.
Gérald Darmanin was pleased to see “attacks on people decrease for the first time”aside from domestic violence still on the rise, due, according to him, “freedom of word”. During the months of September, October and November 2022, Seine-Maritime recorded an increase of 17.48% the number of victims of Domestic violence compared to the same period in 2021.
It thus ranks third among the departments where this figure has increased the most, behind Paris and the Hérault. By way of comparison, in the 20 supervised wards, victims of domestic violence are on the rise 8.71%.
Seine-Maritime is also the department where violent robbery increased the most over the same period (+25.67%). In the departments supervised, violence against people on public transport is decreasing (-23.66%), except in the Hérault and Pyrénées-Orientales. On the other hand, thefts of motor vehicles increased in 14 departments (+52.36% cumulative of the 20 departments). Homicides also decreased by 14% in these wards.
At the end of August, Gérald Darmanin asked the prefects of these 20 departments to step up their efforts and the police chiefs to put “more bruises [forces de l’ordre, ndlr] in the street”. Since then, every week, the prefects have been called to report to the minister on the fight against crime.
To understand the increase in domestic violence and violent robberies in the Seine-Maritime, we asked five questions to Frédéric Desguerre, National Secretary SGP FO Police Unit.
Are the latest data on crime in Seine-Maritime surprising?
Frederic Deguerre: For nothing. For years we had predicted that these figures would explode given the lack of personnel and communications from the Minister on various topics. Thus we arrive at what he hoped he would not see happen, which is an explosion of violent robberies and intra-family violence.
Yet there were 60 people recruited in the Rouen-Elbeuf constituency in 2022…
We have always denounced that, since 2017, we lacked 127 police officers to deal with all these procedures in Rouen. We had a reinforcement of 60 [fonctionnaires, ndlr]. We are therefore missing 67. 60, not enough because we had strengthened the investigative service and we had abandoned the public roads. However, on the public road, we only had two [équipages, ndlr] emergency police to ensure the safety of our fellow Rouen citizens. It was necessary to strengthen this police presence on the ground, so the vast majority of the 60 were placed on the public road to ensure safety.
But when we put more cars on the public road, there are more files arriving and there are fewer detectives to deal with, so we effectively strip Paul to dress Jacques. That’s why the additional 67 we’re asking for is important. We will be able to balance and everyone will be able to work peacefully.
In the field, what are the police missing?
In fact, it’s a whole chain. There is no public presence. The police is not only repression, it is also prevention. And when you catch offenders, you need experienced and specialized police officers to be able to deal with all these cases. And here too we have services such as the minors brigade, the domestic violence brigade, the personal violence brigade, which are on their last legs because [elles doivent traiter, ndlr] too many cases and they don’t make it. We went from a few hundred files per person to a few thousand.
What explains these catastrophic figures?
When the delinquency saw that we no longer had the capacity to occupy this land, it slowly established itself, began to calm down, to establish itself. We saw it in Lyon, in Grenoble, we see it now in Rouen. When we leave the land, nature takes back its rights, and offenders calmly work in places where we cannot go.
What are the solutions to lower these numbers?
There should be this balance between the public road and the people who carry out the investigation and therefore the rest of the procedures. Second thing, [il faut] emphasize prevention. That is to say, not just police rescue but more foot patrols everywhere, otherwise we’ll just move the problem. And have continuity in hiring new staff. That is to not have a big intake of 60 and then for five years to see it decrease month by month.
And above all sitting at the table with justice to see that perhaps not all cases need to be addressed. We have wacky cases that clog us up and take time and interfere with the actual procedures we have to deal with, and at the end of the chain, it is still the victim who suffers all this damage.
