It is a police unit that was created in 2003 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, in particular to intervene in the violence. Under fire after a series of headline-grabbing cases, police officers in the unit learned of their dissolution in July. An announcement made by the Paris police prefect, Didier Lallement, at the beginning of the summer.
The Parisian was able to speak with Patrick (the first name has been changed), one of the 150 police officers who still work within this unit, despite the announcement of their dissolution, and who find themselves more in demand than ever in this period.
How did you experience the announcement of the dissolution of CSI 93 in July?
Patrick. It’s a catastrophe. We don’t know where we’re going to go. Everyone is impacted. Nothing turned out. Our four colleagues are not even judged. We do not know exactly what cases it is. We don’t even have an official version.
Four police officers are nevertheless indicted and about fifteen procedures are launched …
In June, a week after the announcement of the dissolution by the Paris police prefect, our director (Editor’s note, Valérie Martineau) came to see us saying: “You are going out in two weeks.” We were all treated like criminals. Everyone is put in the same bag. It scares many colleagues to skim the unit as much as possible and avoid losing staff while not granting the rights due to us when a service is closed. We all have families, you can’t walk away in another department overnight. She also warned us that there would be a second wave with many other colleagues who would be taken into custody. Our changing rooms, our trucks have been sounded (Editor’s note, tapped). We are used to invitations to the IGPN. In the 93, it’s complicated. We are often the subject of unfounded complaints. Even before this case we had been stuck with a label of violent cops.
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Four months after the announcement, no one has “cleared” yet?
Prefect Lallement got to work very quickly. You have to verbalize. It’s the number that counts. This is a sign that all is well then! We are awaiting the technical committee meeting in December which will tell us what is happening. We are told that our missions will change: there would be more security and less interventions in cities on drug trafficking. But nobody realizes that with us, the dealers are keeping quiet. Traffic is no longer hiding in the halls. There is no longer any fear.
In the meantime, how are your missions going?
We no longer want to work on the 93 and take risks to end up at the IGPN. With the label we have been stuck on, how can we work? We put a yellow star on the CSI. We do nothing. The figure we bring back is zero. We’re just going out to burn gas. We do not intervene. We ride in our trucks. In June, it was an instruction. The hierarchy supported us. Not anymore. Our goal in one day is to find a place in our areas to have a coffee.
Do you still feel like a policeman?
When I joined the police, we had holy fire. Our goal was to make arrests. The CSI was a good service, you could go anywhere. We were offered a wide choice in the missions. Now, the less you do, the better. The material is like us. We are forced to buy holsters for our weapons. The trucks are rotten. They have 200,000 km on the clock. At night, we happened to break down on the A86 and wait for the convenience store until no time. And also to lose a door while driving. I say to myself now: I have a family, that’s all that matters to me.
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