The dismissal of Eric Arella set fire to the powder. The head of the judicial police for the south of France was dismissed from his post on Friday, October 7. The day before, his troops had demonstrated en masse their refusal of the reform of the judicial police, on the occasion of the arrival in Marseille of the director general of the national police (DGPN), Frédéric Veaux. The ousting of the senior official aroused indignation in the ranks of the police as well as in those of the judiciary. In protest, hundreds of investigators gathered in front of their services on Friday afternoon in several cities in France.
After this demonstration of anger of a rare magnitude in the hushed environment of the police, franceinfo explains why this reform of the PJ, carried by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, dissatisfied police officers as magistrates.
A dreaded loss of “independence”, with the centralization of services
The government wishes, with its reform, to place all the departmental police services under the authority of a new official, a departmental director of the national police (DDPN), dependent on the prefect. Whether intelligence, public security, border police (PAF) or judicial police.
Within the police, the project is described as“opaque and deadly” by the National Association of the Judicial Police (ANPJ), created especially to protest against the project. “Apolitical” and “without union label”it brings together investigators determined to alert on the “disastrous consequences” reform “for the security of citizens and the independence of justice”.
“It would make us lose our independence and our efficiency, which, at present, is recognized by all magistrates and lawyers”, protested a policewoman interviewed by franceinfo during the rallies that took place everywhere in France on Friday. This reform also arouses criticism in the ranks of justice. François Molins, public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, had estimated on France Inter, at the end of August, that this reform was “carrying a certain number of dangers“.
The fear of a “waste of skills” of the PJ
For François Molins, the first “risk” of this reform of the PJ is to “destroy something that works”. For the time being, the judicial police occupies a special place within the national police. “The PJ, for 115 years, has developed a real know-how, unprecedented, unequaled, recognized in France and in Europe. Our concern is the abolition of this judicial police”, explains on franceinfo Frédéric Macé. The Secretary General of the French Association of Investigating Magistrates (Afmi) talks about “a real waste of skills” of this service andThe judicial police staff mobilized for law enforcement or public security missions. Effects proven, according to him, by the experiments in progress in five metropolitan departments and in the overseas territories.
The opponents of this project denounce the risk of a “leveling down” of the judicial police. Asked Friday on franceinfo, David Le Bars, secretary general of the union of national police commissioners, fears that the reform will “lose the ability to carry out long-term and criminal investigations”.
Once grouped in a much wider direction, the PJ risks being “redirected to other more short-term priorities or to other missions”also dreads Frédéric Macé. A fear shared by a collective of magistrates, police officers and citizens, in a column published in the newspaper Le Monde (subscribers article) end of August. They are thus worried that the DDPN could “to be encouraged to direct the means of the PJ according to opportunistic criteria”like the “missions ensuring better statistical returns, requirements of elected officials, reduction of mass litigation”.
The risk of increasing political intervention
Professionals in the sector also fear political interference in investigations. “Decompartmentalising the PJ which deals with terrorism, organized crime, major financial crime and ‘political’ files will accentuate this difficulty for the DDPN, in close and constant contact with the prefect”estimates the ANPJ in a press release published Friday on Facebook.
As for lawyers, the National Bar Council (CNB) is concerned, in a press release published on September 13, “of the dangers posed by this project of political interference by the effect of the reinforcement of the authority of the prefects over the police”. The CNB deplores the consequences that such a reform may have “on the security of citizens, on the independence of justice and on the principle of separation of powers”.
“Who will soon be able to deal with our investigations of social and tax fraud, our investigations that we wish to initiate on the large money laundering circuit or on the embezzlement of public funds?”wondered at the end of September the public prosecutor of Marseille, Dominique Laurens, during the re-entry hearing at the judicial court of the city, the third most important in France.
Centralization at the departmental level criticized
The departmental level of this centralization of the control of the police forces does not seem appropriate, because judge “too small”, in particular by François Molins, with regard to a crime that “is played at the level of the interregions and the international”. “Today, we are working on interdepartmental and interregional, even international surveys”abounds a member of the ANPJ with France 3 Occitanie. “How do you want to effectively fight complex criminal networks at a departmental level?”
Citing the example of the fight against drug trafficking, this member of the ANPJ believes that with this reform, the police will only manage to catch “small dealers, small resellers. But against the big traffickers, the ‘invisible people’ at the head of the networks, we can do nothing more”.
“The choice that was made to build a device on the department seems to us indeed problematic on the operational relevance of identifying these teams [criminelles] which are extremely mobile and which, of course, completely free themselves from these borders” administrative, abounds the prosecutor of Marseille, Dominique Laurens. A framework also judged “too narrow” by David LeBars: “The PJ is beyond the department.