A yellow jersey is framed under glass, in his office as deputy director of the Oissel police academy. Commissioner Christophe Urien participated in the two previous editions of the Tour de France. As head of the police mission, he was responsible for securing the publicity caravan. “A lifelong cycling fan, having the opportunity to work on the Tour as a police officer was a real pleasure”, he explains. But immediately he adds: “We must not forget that we are not going there to be a fan but to be a policeman. I have never seen the Tour so little from a sporting point of view. The best place is on your sofa in front of the television.”
Christophe Urien was on the Tour de France the privileged interlocutor of the police for ASO, the organizer. Sacred responsibility. As he says, “the Tour is the equivalent of a traveling Stade de France, without security screening or entry tickets. A permanent miracle happens because the public responds well to the challenges and comes with a good state of mind .” The terrorist risk is not excluded, security devices are in place just in case, but the main danger, according to him, is theroad accident, “that is to say someone from the public who comes to stand on the road, a child for example who wants to pick up a pen or a key ring at the level of the advertising caravan.”
The Tour is sunny but above all it’s people who are happy to be there.
But above all, what the police commissioner retains from these two years on the Tour is thevibe : “It’s a crowd crossed, it’s bravos, it’s people who have a smile, it’s sunshine but it’s above all people who are happy to be there. And this happiness transcends. In my team, I had people who didn’t particularly like cycling and they came back upset saying ‘what a craze’!”
This craze, Margaret Potier also experienced it. Brigadier head of the recruitment unit of the Oissel police academy and former high-level cyclist, she participated twice in the Tour de France. She was holding the national police stand in departure cities. And she liked the easier contact with the population: “We proposed to do handcuffing, to do laser shooting, to try on a vest or a helmet. It’s a wealth to meet people in a different context. It’s festive, it’s the holidays… I still talk about it with a lot of emotion.”
This year, it is one of his recruiting colleagues, David Leconte, who is going on the Tour. It will promote in particular the peacekeeper contest, open until the end of July. The national police also sees in this popular event the opportunity to arouse vocations: “You have to show up, talk to young people, explain to them what our jobs are and that’s how we’ll hook them and make them want to become a police officer.” Become a policeman and why not return to the Tour de France one day “on the other side of the fence”as Margaret Potier says.