“Yes, it’s a slingshot, Mr. Minister!” » In this Debriefing, Christophe Olivieri, union representative of the CGT interior police union and brigadier of the Toulon judicial police service, speaks for the dissatisfaction of his colleagues in the judicial police and directly challenges the Minister of the Interior.
Gérald Darmanin achieves a rare feat: bringing the various players in the judicial institution to agreement! Police officers from different unions, magistrates, lawyers are unanimous: his project to reform the judicial police is dangerous and goes in the wrong direction. François Molins, the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation himself, expressed his concern about a reform that “would risk destroying something that works” and increase the risk “political interference” in the conduct of investigations.
Currently, judicial police investigators, who fight against “serious” crime, drug importation networks, major financial crime involving elected officials, senior administrative officials or organized gang scams, or even groups responsible for regulations of accounts resulting in numerous deaths, are under the authority of the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police. These officials can boast of excellent results, with high clearance rates. They certainly owe it to their talent, but also to the fact that they have the time, the means, and that they can carry out their investigations in complete independence.
However, Gérald Darmanin would like from 2023, these highly experienced police officers to report to a departmental director, placed under the authority of the prefect, who would also manage the services responsible for public security and fighting against petty crime, the intelligence services and the Air and Border Police. This decentralization of their hierarchy, and the increased powers of the prefects, appointed by the executive, over investigations, is seen by the investigators of the PJ as a threat to the separation of powers, which would give the executive news to hinder “inconvenient” investigations or to make small arrangements between friends.
They also fear the government’s propensity to undress Paul to dress Jacques, rather than providing the means necessary for the proper functioning of all services, and to favor communication to the detriment of efficiency. In other words, they fear that some of the resources they currently have and which are necessary to carry out complex investigations will be transferred to other services. And they fear that, in order to “create numbers”, their new hierarchies will call them for public security missions, such as the fight against petty crime, rather than continuing to put their experience to good use by letting them calmly carry out investigations into serious crime.
The one-month moratorium announced by the government does not reassure these police officers, who interpret it as a maneuver to gain time. Nothing currently allows them to think that the government is ready to reconsider this reform, the development of which cost some 100 million euros in consulting firm to the taxpayer. They therefore launched a call for a rally next Wednesday, September 21, in front of the Var prefecture.