“They are first of all the police officers that we need on the ground if we want to act on the traffic”, assures on franceinfo Tuesday October 26 Grégory Doucet, the EELV mayor of Lyon. He reacts to the words of the Minister of the Interior, after the shots which targeted three police officers of the BAC in Lyon, Monday evening. Gérald Darmanin regrets that “in some neighborhoods where we are fighting drug trafficking, there are no video protection cameras.”
>> Lyon: what we know about the shots which targeted the police in the district of La Duchère
franceinfo: Is it a neighborhood known for drug trafficking?
It is a neighborhood in which we know that there is drug trafficking. Last March, there were incidents that led us to strengthen the video surveillance system, but also to increase the police presence, whether municipal police or national police, by increasing the frequency of patrols. We had made sure to adapt our overall system to the situation at the point of the deal to which you refer.
“In the Duchère district, there are already 60 cameras installed.”
Grégory Doucet, the EELV mayor of Lyonto franceinfo
We already have a fairly precise mesh. A week ago, my services sent me back the information, like what precisely on this part of the territory, there were no cameras installed, whereas a little further, we had too much. – full of cameras. So we made the decision to move them. The question is not the number of cameras, but their arrangement.
Yesterday evening, there were no surveillance cameras at this location where the shooting took place, but in the days to come, after a decision you made before, will there be?
Absolutely, this decision, I made it no later than last week. They are first and foremost the police officers that we need on the ground if we want to act on traffic. I asked the Minister of the Interior for additional staff more than a year ago, he promised them to me. Some have already arrived, but we are only a hundred of the 300 who are due to arrive. In the Lyon constituency, we still have a shortage of police officers, as we know.
When the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin invites you to get out of ideology, what do you say?
There is no ideology, I am a very pragmatic person. When I signed a week ago the order to move cameras from where there are too many to put them where there are not enough, where do you see ideology? I make sure that, on a daily basis, the collaboration between the municipal police, the national police and the justice services is as effective as possible.