Since the unconstitutionality of their controls decreed in September 2022, customs officials and their unions have been concerned about the future of their mission and a situation that “legalized in fact the drug trade in France.
Worry competes with anger among customs officers. Last September, the Constitutional Council declared unconstitutional Article 60 of the Customs Code which had authorized the latter, for more than 70 years, to control goods, means of transport and people.
Let the narcotics trade?
Do our major decision-makers accommodate themselves “of a situation which de facto legalizes the trade in narcotics in France”?protested the UNSA-customs union (National Union of Autonomous Unions) and the UDT (Union of customs officers in uniform) in a bitter press release published on December 11, 2022. “What’s the point of taking risks, in front of more and more violent offenders, if it’s to see their procedures fall like skittles? »insists the union.
It must be said that the cancellation of a seizure of more than two kilos of cocaine by the criminal court of Reims, last December, did not reassure the officials in uniform. If the Constitutional Council had made it clear that the repeal of the article would not take effect until September 2023, the court nevertheless agreed with the lawyers of the alleged traffickers, who pleaded the unconstitutionality of customs control. Their clients were purely and simply released.
Since then, other customs seizures have been attacked by following this same line of defence, and customs officials fear that seizure cancellations will increase.
Admittedly, the lawyer for a truck driver, arrested with 86 kg of cannabis on the A36, recently failed to have the procedure annulled, when he denounced a facial check, but that cannot be enough to reassure the officials of the customs : “Each judge does as he pleases”, one of them tells us.
Faced with this uncertainty, the UNSA-customs and the UDT are calling for “strong actions to protect customs officers and their mission”.
“Priority” problem but slow reactions…
Admittedly, the government claims to measure the urgency of the situation. The Minister of Action and Public Accounts Gabriel Attal has also pleaded before the Senate to defend an article of the finance bill, which would have authorized the executive to modify article 60 of the customs code by arrangement. “If we do not have a new article on September 1, 2023, the right of inspection for customs officers falls, Gabriel Attal was alarmed, (…) customs officers make 85% of narcotics seizures in our country. They are the ones who protect the border and control the goods”.
What Jean-François Husson, deputy Les Républicains (LR), retorted that Parliament could not “divest yourself of a subject that affects public freedoms”.
The Constitutional Council finally challenged the article proposed by the government in the finance bill on the grounds that this article would constitute a “budget rider”, that is to say a provision which had nothing to do with a finance law.
And in the opinion of the customs unions that we interviewed, this refusal by the Constitutional Council was entirely foreseeable.
It was not until January 19 that the government finally answered the written question, which Senator LR Catherine Dumas asked it, as early as October 6, concerning the avenues that the executive is considering. “to restore to customs officers the powers essential to the proper exercise of their functions”.
Customs officers and their unions have reservations about the government’s desire to preserve customs missions and their effectiveness. There is little chance that the laconic response of the government to the senator will reassure them.
The decision of the Constitutional Council to repeal article 60 of the customs code “shall have no effect by September 1, 2023”, says the government. Except for this detail that this repeal has already “carried away as an effect” the release of two suspected drug traffickers by a court…
“Compliance with Article 60 of the Customs Code is a priority for the Minister of Public Accounts. Indeed, the preservation of the effectiveness of customs inspection rights is essential in the fight against fraud. The rewrite work is in progress » says the government again.
A reorganization of customs?
From last week, FranceEvening questioned the cabinets of Gabriel Attal and Bruno Lemaire on the measures envisaged to respond to the fears and discouragement of customs officers, as well as on the schedule planned to achieve a modification of article 60 of the customs code. We got no response.
For Magali Groussot, national secretary of L’Action Douanière – CGT-douanes, the government communicates and conceals “a project for the profound reorganization of customs”.
According to the latter, there is “a set of concordant indications which go in the direction of a redeployment of customs at the borders”the government wanting “that customs refocus on its mission of controlling goods at borders and immigration”.
Still according to her, we would like to get rid of the surveillance branch inside the territory. The customs platforms would be put in competition, and fewer controls would make it possible to remain competitive. “Macron’s priority would be that trade flows are not hindered, but customs are a bit of a grain of sand in the gears”says the trade unionist.
Magali Groussot even envisages the dismantling – little by little – of the entire network of French customs… A fear ultimately not very far from that of the UNSA-douanes which affirms that “Article 60 of the Customs Code is slowly dying”: what becomes of a control network from which we withdraw our arms in order to act?
One certainty remains. In four months, the situation has hardly changed: neither the executive nor the legislator have effectively tackled the drafting of an article 60 of the customs code which would meet the requirements of the Constitutional Council… Requirements which are another concern for customs officers.
Protecting the tricks of the trade
In its decision of September 22, 2022, the Constitutional Council considered that Article 60 of the Customs Code does not allow “a balanced reconciliation between, on the one hand, the search for the perpetrators of offenses and, on the other hand, the freedom to come and go and the right to respect for private life” .
In order to achieve a balance, the wise men recommend axes for the rewriting of the article: the places of exercise of the controls must be geographically delimited (“radius of the customs”, “station”, “airport”, “border zone” …), customs officers must justify the circumstances which motivated them to carry out the control and the drafting of their reports must explain the reasons which prompted them to carry out the control.
However, customs officers not only interpret these requirements as an accusation that they carry out arbitrary checks, which they deny, but above all they fear legislative provisions which would force them to reveal the “tricks of the trade”.Those that allow them to form suspicions about certain vehicles or people or cargo, rather than others.
Grégory Ducornetz, deputy secretary general of the UNSA-douanes union, underlines that by attacking the profession on its control policy, we risk forcing the customs services to reveal their “strategy”, in a context where their working methods are already monitored. carefully by the traffickers in order to be able to outsmart them.
Magali Groussot shares these fears and stresses that “the entire community of customs officers must be involved in the reflection following the repeal of Article 60”. It also notes that the DGDDI (General Directorate of Customs and Indirect Duties) is starting a reflection. And seems to want to involve customs officers in a first meeting scheduled soon with voluntary reference staff members. However, she does not hide her fear of a“facade consultation”.
The DGDDI has not, to date, responded to questions fromFranceEvening.