Valérie Pécresse didn’t need that. While her presidential campaign is slipping, the candidate Les Républicains (LR) in the presidential election has just been called to order by the regional prefect as president of Ile-de-France. In a letter dated January 18 and made public on Wednesday February 16, the prefect Marc Guillaume challenges, on the legal level, two of the most emblematic decisions of the president of the regional council and asks her to give them up. Which she has no intention of doing.
Both cases concern security, an area in which, as an elected right-winger, Mme Pécresse decided to involve the region in force. This is how it passed a series of measures called “security shield”. These include granting subsidies to municipalities wishing to install video surveillance systems, or equip their municipal police with firearms, bulletproof vests, pedestrian cameras, vehicles, etc. In 2019, it also created regional security brigades, following a series of fires and damage to high schools. Its agents intervene inside and around the establishments.
Politically, the message is clear: Valérie Pécresse protects the inhabitants of Ile-de-France, as she intends to do, tomorrow, for all French people. Legally, the situation is more murky. Security is indeed not part of the competences of the regional council. This is the argument on which the prefect of Ile-de-France relies. “The region’s mission is to contribute to economic, social and cultural development, he points out in his letter. Subsidies to municipal police do not fall into any of these areas. The regional council is therefore incompetent to grant them. » Consequently, Marc Guillaume asks Valérie Pécresse to cancel the three deliberations of 2017 and 2021 in question.
Same logic for the security brigades. In September 2021, the regional chamber of accounts had already challenged this initiative carried out “without legal basis” who she says comes “confuse the readability and consistency of the mechanisms offered to heads of establishments called upon to manage situations of tension within high schools”. “I can only subscribe to this analysis”, writes in turn the prefect of Ile-de-France, asking Mme Pécresse to stop the financing of these brigades.
The regional council, showcase of the candidate LR
“This is a considerable setback for Valérie Pécresse”, rejoices the communist Céline Malaisé. The candidate for the Elysée “must stop using her function as regional president to stage her national project”, support the elected La France insoumise. The applicant does not see it that way. Far from complying with the requests of the regional chamber of accounts and the prefect, former secretary general of the government of Edouard Philippe, Valérie Pécresse has doubled the number of security brigades, from five to ten. “We must bring tranquility to every school establishment,” she reaffirmed on Wednesday.
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