The Minister of the Interior will have to clear the land. The police unions asked the Minister of the Interior on Saturday Gerald Darmanin “appeasement” measures in the face of the protest aroused by the reform of the judicial police and the day following the ousting of the head of the PJ from the southern zone. “This reform arouses rejection: we must therefore stop this spiral which risks digging a worrying and destructuring gap within our police house”, write Alliance, one of the main police unions, and Unsa, in a press release. common transmitted to AFP.
The “reform raises too many unanswered questions and its merits are not established”, add the two organizations, without however calling for the withdrawal of the project. They are calling on Minister Darmanin for “a quick decision to calm things down”, in order to “return to a real field of exchanges” on this subject. “If really, the project is amendable as has been declared by the minister himself, is it not time to demonstrate it”, writes for its part Unit SGP Police, saying “refuse the architecture” of the project current.
“Take calming measures without delay”
Synergie-Officiers also asks the Minister and the Director General of the National Police (DGPN) Frédéric Veaux to “take calming measures without delay”. The union calls for opting for a “zonal level” of management for the PJ and “certainly not departmental” as currently provided for in the reform.
Alliance, Synergy and theWHAT, who have been meeting for several weeks within the same union “bloc” in view of the professional elections at the end of the year, also reiterate their request for a “moratorium”, already called for at the beginning of September. On the political side, the groups of Socialist deputies and senators also denounced a “dangerous” reform, carried out for the sake of “pure budgetary rationalization” by the Minister of the Interior, in a column published in the Journal du Dimanche.
The dismissal of Eric Arella which does not pass
The National Association of the Judicial Police (ANPJ), created in August once morest the reform, for its part expressed its “indignation and dismay” on Saturday following the dismissal of Eric Arella, the boss of the judicial police for the South of France. He was dismissed from his post on Friday, the day following an action by his troops once morest the reform of the PJ, on the occasion of the arrival in Marseille of Frédéric Veaux. “This big boss, with an exemplary career and career, was unanimously recognized and appreciated by his staff, magistrates and executives of the judicial police”, writes the association, denouncing the “authoritarian methods” of the DGPN. The ANPJ “counts on the highest authorities of the State to find an acceptable solution to this unprecedented crisis within the judicial police”, she adds.
Mr. Arella’s ousting has sparked outrage within the ranks of the prestigious PJ and in the legal world. In protest, hundreds of investigators gathered outside their departments on Friday followingnoon. These rallies took place “in more than 40 cities”, according to the ANPJ. The reform project plans to place all police services at department level – intelligence, public security, border police (PAF) and judicial police (PJ) – under the authority of a single Departmental Director of police national (DDPN), dependent on the prefect. Opponents of the project denounce the risk of a “leveling down” of the PJ and a strengthening of the weight of the prefect in the investigations.
