In Saint-Briac-sur-mer (Ille-et-Vilaine), calm reigns over the villas on the edge of the steep cliffs. It is far from imagining that this upscale village of nearly 2,000 inhabitants and more than 60% of second homes has been plagued, since April, to a controversy between the municipality and some of its citizens. The reason ? The visit, Monday, March 22, during the municipal council, of Commander Aubry of the Saint-Malo gendarmerie company, who came to present “citizen participation”.
Under this very evasive expression hides a system of voluntary and voluntary “referent” citizens, designated to be in contact with the police and to provide them with information concerning the problems of insecurity encountered in the municipality. During the session, the opposition denounced an initiative which “Is the opposite of better living together”, according to one of the elected officials, Françoise Saulais.
A few days later, two residents launched a petition calling for the project to be abandoned. Fred Mary is one of them. This manager of several restaurants, with a casual look, fears the worst: “We don’t need little cops in the neighborhoods. It can only lead to drifts. “ In no time, the petition reached a thousand signatures. And the mayor, Vincent Denby-Wilkes (unlabeled) ended up abandoning the project by shouting fake news : “We just wanted to warn about ways to do things, because lately we have a burglary a week. It didn’t go any further. ”
Budget advantage
Saint-Briac is far from being the only one. Pleurtuit, La Richardais, Miniac-Morvan, Le Minihic-sur-Rance… since early 2021, around Saint-Malo, municipalities of all sizes have taken an interest in this national system. Inspired by neighborhood watch British, “neighborhood surveillance” by residents, it was established in 2006, institutionalized in 2011 by a bill and revised by a circular from the Ministry of the Interior in 2019. An agreement signed between the municipality, the prefecture and the police or the gendarmerie supervises the process set in motion by the mayor, who then chooses the “referents”.
“It’s not going to put an end to burglaries and damage to property, but it can make it easier for our patrol to pass through. »Guillaume Catherine, curator
According to Place Beauvau, around 5,700 municipalities had signed a protocol in 2020. They were 24 in February in Ille-et-Vilaine, five more than six months earlier. “This system is making a comeback recently. One of the main motivations is the cost-benefit ratio since it makes people work for free. A political agenda or the desire for a practical solution that does not cost a lot of money arouse the interest of town halls ”, comments Sebastian Roché, research director at CNRS (Pacte laboratory), specialist in police and security issues.
You have 48.46% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.