Strasbourg: investigators from judicial police mobilize against reform

In several cities in France, police but also magistrates gathered to express their opposition to the project to reorganize the judicial police.

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The sun hits hard on the forecourt of the Strasbourg police hotel, at 12:30 pm around sixty police officers, women and men, magistrates and lawyers, as well as former houses, who came to show their solidarity , they gather. On signs, the politician Georges Clemenceau, the founder of the “Tiger brigades” in 1907, ancestors of the judicial police (PJ), sheds tears. The masks that cover the faces of the police are barred with a yellow sticker “do not open”. “The police do not speak [they are subject to the duty of reserve], and there we are not entitled to speech on this reform”, slips one of them as an explanation.

Most of the officials questioned are their anonymity. Michel Thomas wants to give his name. Three years of retirement, he launched: “If I have a blame for this reason, it will be to put on my honor board.” The solid fellow, the black hair of jet and wavy, started in a police station from 15 e arrondissement of Paris. He arrived at the PJ of Strasbourg in 1996. During his career in the judicial police, he worked at the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI), then at the Criminal Brigade. He takes care of sports and sports betting today. He looks at men and women gathered: “All those who can are there, the others are in operation or in training.”

The announced reform, wanted by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, largely worried in the ranks of the PJ in Strasbourg, who has around forty investigators and celebrated his hundred years in 2020. The testimonies collected go All in the same direction. The merger of this body with the staff of public security, under the authority of a departmental director, according to them, against, against the way of working of these civil servants and risks diluting their expertise and their responsiveness.

“We are not there to claim bonuses or means, but just to do our job as police officers correctly”, comments Michel Thomas, who also criticizes a method without consultation. “When he came here, Mr. Veaux [Frédéric Veaux, the director general of the national police] met with the staff and the unions, but who know little about our problems. We, the base, we have Not heard. “Today, the National Association of the Judicial Police, created on August 17 in response to the reform, has 2,000 members, out of 5,000 judicial police officers throughout France.

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