This corruption takes place quietly in the corridors of public services. Elected officials and civil servants provide services to offenders for payment, in particular by disclosing sensitive information contained in administrative files.
This is a reality that worries the authorities. So-called “low-intensity” corruption which concerns elected officials, civil servants or contractors working for the State, as for this Parisian police officer placed in pre-trial detention because he is suspected of having resold hundreds of police files. When we talk about this corruption, we are talking about paid services provided to delinquents or even organized crime. It is also called “everyday corruption” or “facilitation corruption”.
For example, in Beauvais in March, a vast trafficking of stolen cars was dismantled. A deputy police officer removed their registrations from police files so that they could be legally put back into circulation. There are around a hundred vehicles in total, including luxury cars. This police officer is suspected of having received 600 euros per deregistered vehicle and of having pocketed more than 60,000 euros in total while a gendarme also carried out illegal consultations of police files for the benefit of the dismantled network.
High added value data
These files are at the heart of corruption such as registration files, driving license files, criminal records or wanted persons. This is high value-added data. “The riches of the administration, in France or elsewhere, are the databasesexplains Commissioner Thomas de Ricolfis, number 3 of the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), the police force, and former boss of the anti-corruption office. So we have police files, tax files or criminal records. So all of this is information that has very high value for criminal groups. Because through this information, they can know if we are working on them, if we are preparing operations on them or if they are the subject of research. It’s a bit like insider trading on the stock market.”
“This is information that has a very high value that they are ready to buy to protect themselves from repressive actions by the police or gendarmerie or from legal proceedings.”
Thomas de Ricolfis, IGPNat franceinfo
In October, two police officers from the Paris region were given suspended prison sentences for illegally consulting files for the benefit of a third party. One of them even geolocated a woman to help a lover who had been rejected after sending a false document to the prosecutor…
This corruption does not only concern the police and gendarmes, far from it and there is no shortage of examples. A civil registrar who issues false birth certificates for a network of undocumented immigrants in Lille. A prefectural official in Bayonne who manipulates the driving license file by adding points. A clerk in Saint-Nazaire who is suspected of having transmitted information to drug traffickers while she worked for an investigating judge.
And even, extreme cases: the dockers in Le Havre who help smuggle cocaine using the “Rip-Off” technique: opening containers to recover the drug before replacing a counterfeit seal. Or a customs officer from Roissy who turns a blind eye to at least ten suitcases loaded with coke and 40,000 to 50,000 euros received per piece of luggage.
Quiet corruption
These facts often go under the radar because it is low-profile corruption that generally appears in other investigations. “This is an offense that we will discover during an investigation into a main procedure, indicates Jean-Michel Bolusset is the boss of the judicial police in Reims. This commissioner wrote a report on the subject for the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Ministry of the Interior (IHEMI). We will take drug trafficking, for example for trafficking in false documents or weapons, and we will realize during the investigation that a compromised individual intervenes at this or that stage of the criminal process to facilitate or make possible the commission of the predicate offense.”
This corruption often concerns poorly paid people, favored targets of organized crime, and from which elected officials do not escape. There are numerous cases of favoritism in the allocation of social housing, public contracts or building permits, but not only that. The mayor of Canteleu in Seine-Maritime was indicted for complicity in drug trafficking, suspected of links with heroin dealers.
A lack of transparency
Communities must now develop a corruption prevention plan but without any real obligation. There is no verification or sanction. France also has a way to go on the right of access to administrative documents for the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International. “Voluntarily fighting corruption also means agreeing to communicate communicable administrative documentsrecalls Kevin Gernier, of Transparency International. The canonical example is the time it took the Paris town hall to communicate the documents relating to the representation expenses of the mayor of Paris. The City of Paris ended up complying with the advice of the Council of State.”
“Legally, the Paris town hall did not find itself in an illegal situation but it still took a long time. It used all possible and imaginable recourses to contest the communication of its expense reports to a Dutch journalist who requested it.”
Kevin Gernier, from Transparency Internationalat franceinfo
In the latest Transparency International ranking on the perception of corruption, France is 21st out of 180 countries. There is nothing dramatic but the country can do better because it is far behind the countries of Northern Europe. According to official figures, breaches of integrity increased by 28% between 2016 and 2021. But it is difficult to know whether it is corruption which is spreading or investigations which are progressing. In short, if the temperature increases or if it is the thermometer which is more effective.