Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

France to post scores of new gendarmerie units to rural areas

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to create 238 new gendarmerie brigades and employ more than 2,100 gendarmes by 2027, in a bid to fight crime in suburban and rural France.

Published: 2 October 2023 18:04 CEST
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to set up more than 200 new gendarmerie brigades.
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to set up more than 200 new gendarmerie brigades. (Photo by Bob Edme / POOL / AFP)

During a visit to Lot-et-Garonne on Monday, Macron presented a plan that he described as “historic” – to set up 238 new gendarmerie brigades between November 2023 and 2027. 

These brigades, which will be staffed through the recruitment of some 2,100 gendarmes, will be concentrated on the edge of cities and in rural areas. 93 will be ‘fixed’ – or based in permanent stations – with each staffed by a dozen or so gendarmes. The remaining 145 will be ‘mobile’, staffed by six gendarmes per station. 

There will be at least one new brigade in each département and overseas territory. 

Macron posted a map of where these gendarmes – who unlike the police are technically part of the army – would be deployed, online. The dark blue dots represent fixed brigades, while the light blue dots represent mobile ones. 

The French Presidency said that the location of each new brigade was decided based on “economic, demographic and operational criteria” – the latter referring to the number of offenses recorded in each area. 

The wider context  

In 2022, Macron’s government has promised to recruit an additional 8,500 law enforcement officers (gendarmes and police) by the end of his second term in office. These new gendarmerie brigades will only account for about a quarter of that. 

The government has also promised to double the number of law enforcement officers focused on policing the roads and public transport through to 2032; and to boost the budget of the Interior Ministry by €15 billion over five years. The government says this extra funding is necessary to deal with evolving crime risks and extra requirements engendered by the hosting of mass events like the Olympic games.  

Extra law-and-order spending comes at a moment of tense relations between the police and the public in France – particularly following the killing of teenager, Nahel M, at point blank range by a police officer in June. 

READ ALSO – Gendarmes to ‘policiers’ – who does what in the French police force?

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

NEW CALEDONIA

Fresh violence rocks French overseas territories

French authorities on Thursday grappled with a new spike in violence in the country's overseas territories with security forces killing two men in New Caledonia and officials ordering a curfew after rioting in Martinique.

Published: 19 September 2024 08:49 CEST
Fresh violence rocks French overseas territories

The fresh trouble comes at a sensitive time for France where the new prime minister Michel Barnier is struggling to form a government following snap parliamentary elections and has warned of a “very serious” financial situation.

During an overnight security operation in New Caledonia, two men were killed south of the capital Noumea, the public prosecutor said Thursday, taking the death toll to 13 after months of unrest in the French Pacific territory.

Violence broke out in mid-May over Paris’s plan for voting reforms that indigenous Kanak people fear would leave them in a permanent minority, crushing their chances of winning independence.

While unrest in the South Pacific territory has ebbed since mid-July, an AFP journalist witnessed new clashes erupt between French police and civilians in Saint Louis, a heartland of the independence movement just south of Noumea.

On Thursday, public prosecutor Yves Dupas said security forces on an observation mission fired two shots after being “directly threatened by a group of armed individuals”.

The first “hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone gunman, in the right side of the abdomen,” Dupas said in a statement.

“The second shot hit a man, aged 29, in the chest.”

‘We are not terrorists’

Police were looking for around a dozen people suspected of involvement in attacks on security forces.

“We’re not terrorists, we’re not in a state of war,” said one mother in the village where the security operation was taking place.

France sent thousands of troops and police to the archipelago, which is home to around 270,000 people and located nearly 17,000 kilometres from Paris.

In violence not seen since the near-civil war of the 1980s, hundreds of people were injured and the damage was estimated at around €2.2 billion.

The electoral change — which requires altering the French constitution — has effectively been in limbo since President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament for new elections that in July produced a lower house with no clear majority.

The road to Saint-Louis in the south of the archipelago’s main island Grande Terre is closed. For the 1,200 inhabitants of Saint-Louis, the only way in or out is by foot after presenting an ID at checkpoints.

Only emergency services and ambulances can otherwise cross into the village.

Almost all other roadblocks across New Caledonia have been lifted, but a curfew between 10:00 pm and 5:00 am remains in place.

Authorities are also under pressure in the French Caribbean island of Martinique, home to around 350,000 people.

Officials ordered a curfew in several districts of Fort-de-France, the island’s main city, and next-door Lamentin, after violent cost-of-living protests.

The curfew, ordered on Wednesday evening, runs between 9:00 pm to 5:00 am and will remain in force until at least September 23.

A McDonald’s restaurant was set on fire this week.

The riots follow protests that began in early September over rising prices.

The prefect of Martinique, Jean-Christophe Bouvier, said authorities have made 15 arrests.

Eleven police officers were injured by gunfire, he said, adding that three rioters also sustained injuries.

SHOW COMMENTS