Several hundred judicial police officers demonstrated this Friday, everywhere in France, from Marseille to Strasbourg via Orleans
Lille, Bayonne
Bordeaux and Reims
notably. They intended both to support the boss of the South zone, Eric Arella, who has just been sacked, but also to express their opposition to a reform which plans to reorganize the entire national police.
Eric Arella had been leading investigations into serious crime for seven years from Perpignan to Nice via Corsica and Marseille. He was dismissed from his post after the eventful visit of the director of the national police to Marseille on Thursday. Frédéric Veaux was greeted by silent officials, arms crossed, forming a “hedge of dishonor”.
A “break in the investigation”?
At the origin of this revolt, a reform which aims to bring together under the authority of a departmental director all the police services, that is to say intelligence, public security, border police and therefore the judicial police. For Minister Gérald Darmanin, this single interlocutor, reporting to the prefect, would be a guarantee of efficiency. On the contrary, answer its opponents, “we break the investigation” by bringing together in the same pole the civil servants specialized in complex investigations with those who deal with everyday crime. Another criticism formulated with regard to the ministry’s project: the departmental level would not be suitable for monitoring organized crime.
This summer, an unprecedented fact, a National Association of the Judicial Police was born, in opposition to the reform. It claims 1,850 members. Now the dispute is affecting the whole territory. New calls to demonstrate have already been launched for October 17.
Read also : Eric Arella, the boss of the Marseille PJ, is removed from his post