The judicial police are experiencing an unprecedented crisis. The reform, wanted by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, provides for a profound reorganization of this prestigious service, spearhead of the investigation in France. The thousands of PJ investigators fear losing their independence, seeing their skills wasted, and fear the intervention of politics, with the strengthening of the authority of the prefects. Fears shared by the magistrates.
The police have already expressed their dissatisfaction on several occasions and new large-scale demonstrations are planned throughout the territory, Monday, October 17, to denounce the “execution” of the PJ. On this occasion, franceinfo interviewed several officers, in order to better understand the work of these shadowy officials and better understand the reasons for their anger.
>> Reform of the judicial police: we explain to you why the police and magistrates are angry
Nearly 4,000 investigators throughout the country
The Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) is a sprawling structure made up of nearly 4,000 investigators and more than 1,500 scientific technicians and administrative agents, distributed in central and territorial services. Its headquarters are based in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine). It is there that we find the central offices of the judicial police, to which are entrusted the particularly complex investigations. Their competence is national: they can therefore investigate throughout the territory.
The rest of the business is divided between six zonal directorates (DZPJ) divided between west, south-west, south, south-east, east, and the Antilles. Ile-de-France affairs are shared between the Paris police, which also covers the inner suburbs, and the regional management of Versailles, which takes care of the rest of the Paris region (Seine-et-Marne, Yvelines, Essonne and Val-d’ Oise).
“We have a very broad territorial jurisdiction, adapted to the crime that we hunt down, which is rarely confined to a single department”underlines Stéphanie Duchatel, deputy police commander in the criminal brigade of the judicial police of Versailles. The women and men of the PJ deplore the “departmentalization” of their work. The reform intends to place the PJ, like the other police services, under the authority of a departmental director of the national police (DDPN), dependent on the prefect of police. According to them, this level does not make it possible to fight against organized crime, which most often operates in several regions, even in several countries.
Once placed under the direct authority of the prefect, they also fear being pressured or even interfered with by the political authorities. “Potentially, we break a dike”worries Christophe Korell, a former judicial police officer, currently seconded to the Ministry of Justice. “With this reform, the departmental director will be aware of the investigations that affect elected officials while he will be in contact with the prefect. It is very problematic”he insists.
Investigative police officers
The PJ differs in particular from the Central Directorate of Public Security (DCSP) on which the police officers found in the police stations depend. While the latter manage everyday crime (theft with violence, neighborhood disputes, intra-family violence, etc.), the PJ investigators are seized directly by a prosecutor or an examining magistrate to carry out investigations into the most serious offenses. complicated, requiring time and specific knowledge.
PJ investigators mostly have the status of judicial police officer (OPJ), which enables them to place a person in police custody, carry out searches, wiretap a person or request organizations for information. The OPJs work in specialized brigades. The best known are the criminal brigade, nicknamed “the Crim'”, which handles cases of murder, rape, kidnappings and kidnappings, the branches of the Ofast (anti-narcotics office), the financial brigades and the brigades repression of banditry (BRB). All are supported by the research and intervention brigades (BRI) which can also carry out their own initiative surveys.
“In a police station, a police officer can have up to 400 files a year, all by himself. In PJ, we often work in pairs, even in groups, and we have around forty files a year” , explains Christophe Korell. The missions of the investigators revolve around organized crime: what the experts call “top of the spectrum”, which ranges from drug trafficking to organized crime, through serious personal injury, financial crimes, terrorism or cybercrime. All matters involving VIPs also fall under the jurisdiction of the PJ. Stéphanie Duchatel cites the example of the aggression of Kheira Hamraoui, the PSG player. “It was we who dealt with it, because of the media and political pressure around it.”
With the reform, their staff will be merged with those of public security, themselves drowned in procedures, which they can no longer process. The first fear of judicial police officers is therefore to be assigned some of these outstanding files, leaving them less time to deal with their cases. A concern shared by justice professionals. “We can legitimately assume that PJ officers will be mobilized to work on urban rodeos or domestic violence, to the detriment of their substantive investigations”dreads Kim Reuflet, president of the Syndicate of the judiciary, arguing that “departmental directors and prefects have statistical objectives with the priority of reducing daily crime”.
“A little ant’s work” on a daily basis
Nathalie* spent 15 years in public security before turning to the PJ, within the criminal brigade of the southern zonal direction, which covers the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (Paca), Occitanie and Corsica regions. It deals almost exclusively with settling accounts “with the Kalash” or with the 9 millimeters” and explains to franceinfo how it proceeds on the investigations for which it is responsible. “We always start from the victim. Very often, there is a history of litigation concerning them, kept up to date within our service: this is one of our big strengths. It allows you to have a first idea who blames him”, she explains.
Once at the crime scene, findings take a long time, “three hours minimum”, counting all the samples taken by the scientific police. “This is the moment when nothing should be missed, the slightest element can be useful”, insists the OPJ. It then proceeds to an in-depth neighborhood survey. Comes, a few days later, the time of the autopsy, which can bring important elements.
“We will then work considerably on telephony, with different methods, as well as on video surveillance, which often teaches us a lot.she explains. It’s painstaking work.” Finally comes the arrest and indictment of the suspect or suspects. “But be careful, this is not the purpose of the file“, warns Nathalie. Lawyers or magistrates often ask for additional acts of investigation, “like a personality survey or the deepening of a telephony work”. According to her, a file of the criminal brigade is rarely closed before a period of two years.
Investigation is a priesthood. The days are dense and it is not uncommon for spinning mills to drag on until the end of the night. Telephone tapping must sometimes continue at home, so as not to lose the thread. “In PJ, you really have to be passionate, because it’s a lot of sacrifices”says Stéphanie Duchatel modestly.
“I happened to work for ten weeks in a row, without a day off. My children were small, it was very hard for family life.”
Christopher Korellat franceinfo
The work of the investigators is all the more meticulous as they have seen it become heavier with increasingly time-consuming criminal proceedings. “Everything we do in a police investigation, we write it down”, blows Stephanie Duchatel. In recent years, several rules have been introduced to better enforce the rights of people arrested or held in custody, greatly increasing the administrative role for investigators. From now on, the slightest phone call must be the subject of a report. “It takes up most of our time, but we have no choice if we want the investigation not to fall apart.”