The first 154 agents of the Paris municipal police were presented with great fanfare on Monday. Authorized to patrol from this Tuesday, they are for the moment unable to verbalize, for lack of having taken an oath.
The swearing-in ceremony will take place in November. By then, these agents will technically be able to patrol even if the majority of them will resume their usual activities until the beginning of November, reports the Parisian.
Long awaited, the new #police municipal council is finally deployed today at #Paris. Adopted by our majority @deputeslarem within the framework of the Global Security PPL, it takes care to fight against incivility.
Reachable from tomorrow at # 3975 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) pic.twitter.com/nAbMfx09Q8
– Marie Silin (@mariesilin) October 18, 2021
A long process
As a reminder, after being unfavorable to this idea, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, finally backed down, launching in January 2019 the process of creating this municipal police. On July 16, 2019, accompanied by her assistant Colombe Brossel, then in charge of security in Paris, she outlined what this future service was going to be.
It will be a “reassuring presence” then promised Colombe Brossel, who explained that the municipality saw in it above all the means to fight more effectively against incivility, noise pollution or the drifts linked to new mobility. But what seemed very concrete at the time had finally taken longer than expected to become reality, while the subject had been debated at length in Parliament.
The promulgation in May 2021 of the comprehensive security law had finally enabled the municipality to make the project a reality. And despite a diametrically opposed opinion between the right and the Parisian left on what should be the municipal police in Paris, in particular on the question of armament, 79.2% of elected officials (i.e. 114 out of 160) gathered at the Paris Council last June 2 had voted in favor.
Then things had (finally) accelerated. From the spring of 2021, a school of specific security professions in Paris was then created – providing “training identical to that provided by the National Center for the Territorial Public Service (CNFPT) to municipal police officers from other local authorities” underlines the municipality – to train future municipal police officers.
Among them, former security inspectors of the City of Paris (ISVP) and former Paris surveillance agents (ASP) but also a certain number of new agents to be recruited. “We are going to put considerable resources into recruiting […] to reach 5,000 agents attached to the municipal police and prevention ”, had also announced in June Nicolas Nordman, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of security.
Up to 5,000 term agents
In total, “by the end of the term”, in fact 5,000 officers should form this very first municipal police. Among them, 3,400 will be municipal police officers and 1,600 will have a different status but also contributing to a policy of security and public tranquility.
On the ground, they will be responsible for “sanctioning incivility”, “securing public space” and “doing prevention”, divided into 17 divisions of public tranquility, one per district.
As planned from the beginning, they will be unarmed, but will still have a number of defensive equipment, including a tonfa (baton), a bulletproof vest and gas. They will also be equipped with a pedestrian camera.