Detox. No, it is not the number of the national police which increased by 21%

It is a harsh report, but poorly understood. On November 18, the Court of Auditors published a note on the management of staff and human resources in the national police. Many media then retained a shock figure. While the rate of resolution of cases stagnates, the budget allocated to police personnel would have jumped by 10 billion, and the workforce by no less than 21%! That is a fifth more uniforms.

In any case, this is what we read in a very explicit graphic broadcast on BFMTV on the morning of November 18. Same in The world, which emphasizes that ” the 10 billion euros devoted over ten years to the police payroll [ont] enabled a 21% increase in staff, including 8,000 more police officers between 2015 and 2020 “.

This sentence can be found identically on the site of 20 minutes, of Figaro or from Capital. And for good reason: it was originally Agence France Presse which wrote it in its dispatch of November 18. As often, this dispatch was reproduced identically by many media.

Except that AFP had misunderstood the note from the Court of Auditors. The financial court in fact drew up the following observation: in ten years there has been a ” 21% increase in payroll Because of salary increases or promotions. This does not mean that the numbers have grown in the same proportions.

Far from a growth of a fifth in the number of police officers, the Sages of rue Cambon note an increase between 2010 and 2020 in full-time equivalents worked of 1%. Which is not quite the same. AFP has since corrected its dispatch and The world corrected his story, but the numbers are still spinning in the media.

Find Detox Monday to Thursday, on the show 28 minutes on Arte, presented by Elisabeth Quin.
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/28minutes/
On Twitter : https://twitter.com/artedesintox
On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/28minutesARTE
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artedesintox/
On the Arte website: http://28minutes.arte.tv/