Beauvau of security: Emmanuel Macron promises “substantial” announcements this Tuesday

Published on : 09/14/2021 – 07:40

Emmanuel Macron closes, Tuesday, September 14 in Hauts-de-France, the vast consultation of Beauvau on security, promising, a few months before the presidential election, “substantial” announcements and “radical” changes in this sovereign domain, angle attack on right-wing candidates and the National Rally.

The Head of State will hold a speech at the National Police School in Roubaix around noon. In the assembly: police and gendarmes but also an audience of elected officials from this region, including Xavier Bertrand, at the head of the voting intentions among the right-wing candidates in the presidential election.

In an interview with Figaro Tuesday, the LR candidate accuses Emmanuel Macron of not having been able to “curb the violence that is developing” and calls his security policy a “deep” “failure” of the five-year term.

According to the Élysée, the president’s speech will be the occasion for a series of “substantial” announcements.

No law before the end of the five-year term

“The State and the nation will invest massively but in return, there will be radical changes in the conduct of the security mission,” the presidency said on Monday.

Among the measures should include announcements on video surveillance, training and supervision of the police, or the “attractiveness” of the functions of judicial police.

The president will also insist on the links “police / population” and those between “security forces and justice for more efficiency and speed”. The Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti will be present, while the “States General of Justice” are due to open soon, decided after controversies over the functioning of the institution, notably from the police unions.

The executive had promised to take back the conclusions of Beauvau for the development of a law of programming and orientation of internal security (Lopsi).

But this text cannot be voted on before the end of the five-year term and therefore remains suspended from a re-election of Emmanuel Macron. It should therefore first form the backbone of the security component of the Head of State’s program for 2022.

Review the control of the action of the police

Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron will also announce an “external and independent control” of “the action of the police”. One way of responding to recurring criticisms aimed at the IGPN (“the police of the police”), accused of lacking independence, in particular in cases of police violence.

The modalities of this control were not specified, but the Head of State had mentioned in an interview with Le Figaro in April the creation of a “parliamentary delegation in charge of the control (of) police forces”, in the image of the intelligence delegation.

Beauvau, punctuated for seven months by eight round tables – on the themes of training, supervision or even video capture – was launched after the beating of Michel Zecler, black music producer, in November 2020 in Paris .

After this case, Emmanuel Macron had recognized the existence of facial checks and violence on the part of the police. Statements that made the police unions scream. Beauvau had been decided to respond to their anger.

After seven months of consultation, they hope for “a concrete commitment”. “We need a decision (…), it must be clear and clean,” David Le Bars, of the union commissioners, told AFP, pleading for the signing of “protocols”.

Grégory Joron (SGP police FO unit) wants “tangible measures at 1^er January “relating in particular to” careers “,” the staffing rate. “Alliance calls for its side a” real plan “for the police with a” large envelope “.

The consultation, criticized for its “self-esteem”, in particular because of the absence of actors from civil society, ended Monday with a round table on equipment and new technologies to meet the challenge of criminals.

As a symbol, it was held in the absence of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, traveling in Isère for a tribute to the civil security mechanic who died this weekend in a helicopter accident.

With AFP