It’s not Marseille, but the municipal police of Allauch and Plan-de-Cuques need reinforcements, according to their mayors. There are only eight national police officers left in the police station shared by the two municipalities, a pool of 35,000 inhabitants. They were 63 in 2016, but their number dropped drastically when the new network of intervention forces was put in place. Most of them were reassigned to Marseille.
The mayors, both elected under the label Les Républicains, want 20 additional national police officers. For the moment, the eight police officers are not enough to carry out other missions than to take complaints between 8 a.m. and noon and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday. The elected officials want the creation of a new public security district in their two municipalities. They recently expressed their request during a national evaluation mission of the urban police.
Municipal police go to Marseille to record their arrests
It regularly happens that there is no no judicial police officernecessary to record arrests at the Plan-de-Cuques police station, or at the police station in the 12th arrondissement of Marseille. “This forces our municipal agents to go to the police station in the 10th arrondissement, or even to the divisional police station in the 8th arrondissement”underlines the mayor of Plan-de-Cuques, Laurent Simon.
“We have one hour to make this presentation [celle de l’interpellé à un officier de police judiciaire]so sometimes, depending on the traffic, we arrive too late”, explains Laurent Simon. In Plan-de-Cuques, alone half of the arrests in flagrante delicto give rise to a presentation to a judicial police officer.
A colossal budget
“Having national police officers on our streets would contribute to this feeling of security”, believes Lionel de Cala, mayor of Allauch. Since his election in 2020, he has strengthened the municipal police, the service of public highway surveillance agents and the remote surveillance program. Thirty officers in all. Which represents 10% of the municipal budget, almost 2.5 million euros per year. “We want the State to do its part by providing national police reinforcements”explains Lionel de Cala.