Decried in the 2000s, commonplace today, surveillance systems in the French public space are the subject of an investigation by Michel Henry and Olivier Lamour.
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Twenty years ago, their installation was controversial. Now it seems that the population is asking for more. What happened to make the increasingly massive presence of video surveillance systems so commonplace? The installers, who surf on a lucrative business with a market estimated at 2 billion euros per year, prefer to talk about video protection, less anxiety. Whatever the semantic choice, the result is there: everyone, or almost everyone, wants cameras in the public space.
Authors of this survey, Michel Henry and Olivier Lamour draw up the picture of a France converted, it seems, to the joys of video surveillance, whether in large cities or in small villages. Are these systems really effective in the fight against delinquency? Who scrutinizes the images collected? Are their costs under control? Who really has an interest in filling the territory with more and more sophisticated cameras? And the next step, carefully prepared by companies often linked to the military-industrial complex, will it be done, in addition to the drone surveillance already in use, of facial recognition, a method still officially prohibited by the National Commission of data processing and freedoms (CNIL) in the French public space?
To all these questions, fundamental to understanding in particular what differentiates a democracy from a country with an authoritarian regime, the authors try, with the help valuable witnesses, to respond. From Nice, which we can consider as the French capital of video surveillance, to the villages of Trumilly (Oise, 528 inhabitants) or Blandy-les-Tours (Seine-et-Marne, 739 inhabitants), full of cameras, we listens with interest to the arguments of followers and opponents.
Paranoia and disturbing truths
From the aisles of the Milipol trade fair – where the latest innovations in security are presented – to the Nice’s impressive urban supervision center (CSU), where 120 agents installed in six rooms constantly scrutinize the surveillance screens, we enter a world of cutting-edge technology, big money, paranoia and disturbing truths. Like the fact that the cameras of the CSU are visibly used more to verbalize badly parked motorists than to discourage delinquents…
Faced with more and more municipalities ready to pay – and to benefit from generous subsidies – to install cameras in public spaces, there are some counter-examples. Like Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine), which has chosen to develop neighborhood houses and hire mediators without using video surveillance. Result: as little, if not less, delinquency than in the neighboring town of Levallois, which is largely equipped with cameras.
Each surveillance camera installation must be preceded by a request to the prefecture. And yet, nobody is able to know their precise number according to! The essential question remains: does our thirst for security threaten our freedoms? “Until the 1990s, when you questioned the mayors, they answered you: security is the business of the State. Since then, some elected officials have wanted to make a career on this subject”, underlines Laurent Mucchielli, sociologist and specialist in security issues. The surveillance camera, an effective tool to get elected?