These police officers will have authority over all the police departments in their department. Their appointment was scrutinized by opponents of the reform of the judicial police, mobilized for a year.
They constitute the heart of the highly contested reform of the judicial police (PJ), initiated by Gérald Darmanin. The 90 future departmental directors of the national police (DDPN) were officially appointed on Wednesday July 19, according to a telegram from the Ministry of the Interior consulted on Saturday July 22 by AFP. Information that the Information and Communication Service of the National Police (Sicop) confirmed to franceinfo, in stride.
These DDPN, dependent on the prefect, must take office in September. They will have authority over all the police services in their department (intelligence, public security, border police, judicial police) with the particular objective of putting an end to the functioning of the national police in “organ pipes”, deemed ineffective by the Interior.
Their appointment was therefore scrutinized by opponents of this reform, in particular many police officers of the PJ, who see in this unity of command the primacy given to public security to the detriment of judicial investigations, as well as the increasing weight of the prefect in investigations.
Appointments criticized
“You can’t say that the PJ is mistreated”points out to AFP the director general of the national police (DGPN), Frédéric Veaux, who believes he has built a list “balanced”. “Many DDPNs, whose last position is in public safety, have spent a large part of their career in PJ”, he underlines, quoting the future director of the Alpes-Maritimes, passed by the PJ of Nice, Bastia and Ajaccio. On the low number of women (12 out of 90), the DGPN puts the brake on the “geographic mobility” for several candidates.
“It is a hostile public security takeover of all national police services”denounces to AFP, for its part, the National Association of the Judicial Police (ANPJ), created in the summer of 2022 to organize the response. “All this indicates a choice of security policy geared towards public order and peace, to the detriment of the judiciary”adds the ANPJ.