Hunters have “a role to play in community policing”, judges their boss Willy Schraen – LCI

It is a proposal that he is leading head on. And that he intends to do to rural elected officials, on the sidelines of the Congress of Mayors, in which he will participate, on November 16, 17 and 18 in Paris. In an interview with JDD, Sunday, November 14, the president of the National Federation of Hunters (FNC) Willy Schraen announced that he wanted to propose a “partnership” to local elected officials in order to fight “rural and environmental delinquency”. By means of this concord, he wishes to be able to give the sworn agents of the various departmental federations of hunters police powers in the forest.

“Rural and environmental delinquency is increasing. A link is clearly missing at the level of the territories. In terms of community policing, the departmental federations of hunters have a role to play in contributing to the prevention and surveillance of the territories, in addition to sovereign missions of the State “, estimated the president of the powerful FNC. “Within the Federation, we have development agents. They are trained and sworn professionals already working in certain municipalities who have requested them for the regulation of certain harmful species.”

Thus, his troops, relaying the gendarmes, “could, tomorrow, under the control of the State and the mayors, have broader missions to deal with illegal garbage dumps, the straying of domestic animals, problems related to the presence of motorized vehicles in the forest in sensitive places, etc. “, detailed Willy Schraen, claiming “1500 employees capable of doing it” nearby Sunday Newspaper. “It would be a question of drawing up reports and finding flagrant offenses.”

The boss of the FNC wanted to respond to those who fear that his proposal will lead to the creation of a police of hunters. “It is not a question of giving weapons to the hunters to carry out these missions, nor of transforming our agents into policemen of the environment”, he explained. “It would be ridiculous and it is by no means the objective. It will only work with the rural communes which will agree to sign a convention. In reality, many mayors are already calling on us, but our action is limited to meet their expectations. It would therefore be a question of giving a legal framework to our intervention. ”

Guest of the LCI-RTL-Le Figaro Grand Jury, the Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili responded to this proposal. “There is already an environmental police which exists and which is exercised by different categories of sworn officials. It must already be said. Then, among the federations of hunters, there are sworn employees to already do a little hunting police “, reacted the former member of EELV, just back from Glasgow where the COP26 was held.

“If the words of Willy Schraen mean that we can increase the skills of these sworn employees, for example for the management of litter, that is up to you. Why not? Why not look at what they do more?”, she added. “But we’re not going to say that hunters are going to be the environmental police. It is not for them to play that role.”