His name has been circulating in the halls of the prefecture for several weeks but it is now official. Laurent Nunez, the current national coordinator of intelligence and the fight against terrorism will succeed Didier Lallement as prefect of police of Paris. He was officially appointed on Wednesday during the Council of Ministers, as Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on Twitter.
Laurent Nunez, 58, was from 2018 to 2020, Secretary of State for Homeland Security to Christophe Castaner. Before entering the government, this senior civil servant with a degree from the ENA held the position of Director General of Internal Security (DGSI) between 2017 and 2018. In these three positions, he developed real expertise in the field of intelligence which could be useful to him at the Paris police headquarters.
Laurent Nunez is also a connoisseur of the prefectural since he was the representative of the State in the Bouches-du-Rhône from 2015 to 2017. But these are indeed his two years as chief of staff to the prefect of police of Paris from October 2012 to March 2014 which allowed him to acquire all the codes of the Ile de la Cité that he will have to use to carry out his new mission.
Didier Lallement, a weakened prefect
Didier Lallement, reached, in August 2021, the age limit of 65 years in the prefectural body but he had been kept in his post thanks to a derogatory provision. It was he who asked that he be terminated. “My reasons are simple: I consider that I have reached an age that is not compatible with high intensity operational functions. I want to be lucid: you don’t command women and men when you’re old enough to be a grandfather. he explained in a last message to his troops that we recovered.
Implicated for his management of public order during the incidents that occurred around the Stade de France during the final of the Champions League, the prefect of police had recognized “a failure” and imprecise figures on the events.