The double calling of France's Municipal Police

INTERVIEW/ Virginie Malochet

Over the past 25 years the municipal police force has nearly tripled in numbers, and is at the core of what has been described as the decentralization of security.

“Police actions  focused on emergency interventions seem to be a failed model” said Sociologist Virginie Malochet, associate researcher at LAPSAC (Laboratory for the Analysis of Social Problems and Collective Action). In France today, there is a perception that public security issues must be dealt with at local level, and that both responses and solutions should increasingly come from municipal police forces whose work complements the role of the national police.

In order to throw light on a profession that is little known to the French themselves, and to explain the current process of decentralisation of public security policies, Comunidad Segura interviewed Sociologist Virginie Malochet,  whose recent thesis focuses on the role of the municipal police, its competing vocations and future trends.

French police have always been essentially centralised, i.e. led by the State government.   When and why did the municipal police emerge? 

Despite never having completely disappeared, the municipal police gained a new lease of life at the beginning of the 1980’s. This was the result of general security concerns and rising delinquency within the context of a perceived lack of commitment by the State police force at the local level. 

The change did not impact the police alone however?

This “revival” of municipal police forces coincided with a new decentralised political framework, as new legislation and mechanisms were enacted to prevent delinquency, progressively strengthening local governance.  Since then, the number of communities equipped with municipal police forces has been continuously growing and the number of municipal police officers has nearly tripled over the past 25 years. 

When were the “police de proximité” created?

In France, the national police pilot-tested the so-called police de proximité  reform in 1999, in several locations before taking it to national scale in 2000-2002.

As a consequence of a tight implementation schedule, however, the new methods introduced were not met with public approval, and were considered hasty by the population.   After the electoral turmoil in the spring of 2002 and the change in Government, the so-called police de proximité was diminished and deprived of its meaning, losing ground to more traditional repressive approaches to policing. However, the need for bringing the police closer to the population is still evident, as confirmed by a recent speech by the Minister of the Interior, in which she emphasized the need for establishing a pact of mutual trust between the two sides.  

How did the police de proximité emerge? 

Many of the issues encapsulated in the notion of “proximity” reflect recent debates on the need for police reform.  Generally speaking, in western society, increased urban violence and delinquency rates coupled with an overall sense of insecurity- seem to reveal the failure of a police model focused on emergency interventions and judiciary issues, on that is distant from the people and their concerns.

A number of countries reacted to this by looking for inspiration in the “broken glass theory”, while developing police action programs aimed at getting closer to citizens and their problems.

Is it possible to say that the municipal police perform the role of a police de proximité?

Yes, clearly, the municipal police have the same ascendance of the “police de proximité”. By definition, they act locally, and are therefore directly linked to a given territory. They are led by mayors who, generally speaking, are inclined to meet the demands of their subordinates, who might in turn potentially vote for them. 

How do the municipal police relate to the national police and the gendarmerie, the military police?

Since their mandates are linked to that of the mayor, the municipal police are not obliged or tied to the procedures that tend to hinder the work of the national police and the gendarmerie (military police). They have more time to intervene locally, to undertake routine inspections to ensure public order and perform mediation activities.

However, a repressive tendency in their activities has recently been observed, following new judicial powers attached to their functions. The more professionalized they become, the more they tend to follow the national police modus operandi. Also, in some cases, when mayors employ them so as to make up for the absence of national police forces, they tend to perform a complementary role to that of the national police. Centred on actions of control and interception, they act to reinforce the work of the national police.

Can we say that France has municipalized security issues, in comparison to other countries? 

In France, despite the weight of a tradition that centralizes power, there is a clear trend to municipalize security issues. Since the decentralising laws were enacted in the 1980's, we have witnessed a continuous trend to “territorialize” the public realm. In this sense, the piece of legislation created to prevent delinquency in March 2007 reinforces the central role of the mayor in local public security policies.  That said,  the international comparison requires some caution given the diversity of the administrative-political systems involved. In many countries,  and specially in Anglo-Saxon countries, public security problems have been tackled at a local level for a long time.

In one of your articles, you outlined two major tendencies in how municipal police officers perceive their mission: could you tell us more about it?

I make a distinction between two “ideal types”: the so-called “bobby”, who is closer to the people and perceived to be at their service, and the so-called “flic”, more distant, at the service of the law, in search of a flagrant offence. Actually, the municipal police officers never perform exclusively one of these roles. The majority of police officers understand or grasp the meaning of their duties from two main perspectives of professional identity, as the municipal employee or as the police officer.  This ambivalence is inherent to their statute and, even if it may sometimes be difficult for them to wear these two hats, and perform so many different functions at a time  (prevention, repression, control, mediation etc), this is exactly what constitutes the richness of the profession. However the establishment of competitive recruitment and the substitution of professionals over generations are likely to change the profile of municipal police officers over time.   This 'evolution' that is already noticeable, it seems to announce the victory of the flics over the bobbies; the overriding concern with serving the local community seems to be replaced by the desire to correspond to the dominant model of police officer that is represented by the national police. The risk is  that the municipal police end up losing ground in their own territories. Therefore their main challenge is to able to combine new powers with their original calling of proximity in order to deliver good quality police services.

What then guides their doctrine, and to what extent is it driven by prevention or repression?

The mayor defines their function locally, sets objectives and commands the municipal police in his or her own fashion, within the limits of the judicial framework. The mayor is undoubtedly the “big boss”, and it is entirely up to him whether to deploy them to patrol the city according to a “security rationalle” (under a wider perspective) or to chose a more friendly approach following the “proximity” logic (in a more narrow perspective). He or she decides, for instance, whether or not they should be in charge of speed surveillance, whether or not to work night shifts, and whether police officers should hold weapons or not (under preliminary authorisation).  In 2005, according to official data, over half of the municipal police services in France were authorised to carry weapons; out of these, less then half used weapons of fourth category (guns); the others disposed only of sixth category weapons (clubs) and flashballs were used at even lower rates.

What influence do the State authorities have over municipal policies?

The 15 April 1999 municipal police law has outlined its competencies and  sphere  of action; it has also detailed the kinds of weapons authorised for its use and reinforced the machanisms for its  external control.  In other words, the State established its judicial regulation at national level.  But it is also true that at the local level, it is the mayor who decides on public security policies and sets the lines of action of the municipal police. State representatives in a given region may well try to influence local authorities in order to persuade them to install video surveillance systems, but it is the mayor who will eventually decide on whether or not to take it forward.

What do French people know about the municipal police? Would that have been an important factor during the recent municipal elections?  

The great majority of people are not able to distinguish the different police forces (municipal police, national police and gendarmerie – military).   Having said that, municipal police officers now wear specific uniform and cars that are marked differently from those used by national and military police forces, which helps to clarify things. As to the political factors that influence public security in general and work of the municipal police specifically, they are significant, even if these are nowadays less centrally-led than during the municipal and presidential ellections in 2001 and 2002.    Therefore, certain town hall candidates make the issue of municipal police one of the central aspects of their campaigns, promising, for instance, to increase the number of police officers in the city or the creation of mounted police or police with VTTs (mountain bikes).

Translated by Veronica Barbosa