Sixty police officers from the CRS 8 elite unit, specializing in the fight against urban violence, arrived on Tuesday August 16 in Colmar. The day before, Gérald Darmanin announced his deployment after the murder of a 17-year-old Afghan who had protested against an urban rodeo.
Created a year ago, this CRS 8, also called “rapid support force”, has the mission of being deployable seven days a week, throughout the territory in the event of a particularly tense situation. A sort of “super CRS company”, it is better equipped and more mobile than the traditional companies. They are only about sixty Colmar but this unit has a total of 200 people, based in Essonne, trained to intervene throughout the territory and able to leave for the area in less than 15 minutes.
These CRS have already been deployed several times, notably in Corsica after the demonstrations against the aggression in prison of Yvan Colonna, but also in Amiens, Mantes-la-Jolie after the urban violence of last summer, and more recently in the Val de l’Aurence district in Limoges, at the beginning of August.
At the time of its creation, the announcement had been greeted with skepticism by certain police unions who then questioned the interest of this “rapid support force” considering that the mission of the CRS 8 was carried out by the companies of classic CRS. “This project, we see somewhere in it a desire to dismantle the CRS in their current organization” explained Alain Vastel, CRS national secretary of the SGP Police FO Unit union.
“This CRS 8 has cost in manpower and equipment. So at some point you have to justify this rather special investment with regard to the other CRS.”
Jérôme Moisant, Union Unit SGP Police FOfranceinfo
This company specializes in responding to urban violence. It conducts operations to secure the premises and intervene in the event of new urban rodeos. According to the Haut-Rhin prefecture, its role is to accentuate “the fight against urban rodeos, and against deal points“. The sixty men will therefore multiply the controls on the spot, day and night.
The objective of the Minister of the Interior is to prevent the situation from escalating through the dissuasive and preventive presence of the police. The motivations are also undoubtedly political, says Jérôme Moisant, secretary general of the SGP Police FO Unit Union: “There is perhaps a preparation of the ground on the part of the minister since we hear that he could envisage reproducing the diagram of the CRS 8 in the other defense zones“.
Indeed, at the time of its creation last summer, the tenant of Place Beauvau had promised the creation of seven other companies on the model of this “super CRS” which would be present throughout the territory. According to the minister’s entourage, this will be debated within the framework of the orientation and programming law of the Ministry of the Interior presented in October to Parliament.