Charente town with 4,500 people has 79 surveillance cameras

The small town of Jarnac in Charente, south-west France has won the dubious honour of becoming the most-surveilled town in the department. 

Four new video surveillance cameras set to be installed this spring will bring the town’s total to 79, one for every 56 people. 

The system is estimated to have cost over €100,000, prompting some residents, speaking to local media, to question whether the money could have been better spent tackling more pressing issues such as potholes. 

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Local officials have defended the move. 

“It may seem like a lot but we have 45 covering public buildings and only 34 in the town centre,” deputy mayor Christophe Roy told France 3. 

He said he thought the cameras would help to reduce crime in the town. 

The increase in video surveillance cameras reflects a more widespread adoption across France. 

The number of public video surveillance cameras controlled by the police or gendarmerie rose from 60,000 in 2013 to 90,000 in 2023, according to a report by MPs Philippe Gosselin and Philippe Latombe. 

Risks to individual freedoms

Critics have pointed to the potential risks to individual freedoms and privacy of this increase in surveillance.

The French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, which advises the French government on human rights issues, in 2024 said it was concerned video surveillance was “becoming commonplace” without sufficient consideration by authorities of its impact on people’s “rights and freedoms”. 

However, the public is broadly in favour of increased security. 

A survey conducted by OpinionWay in September 2024 showed 87% of French people supported the presence of cameras in public spaces, a figure that was constant across age, social class and political orientation.

And a 2023 study showed 74% of French people were in favour of AI-backed video surveillance cameras being used in public, according to a Fiducial/Odoxa poll for Le Figaro. 

Lack of evaluation on effectiveness

The effectiveness of video surveillance has been widely debated but public authorities have carried out no precise evaluations on its impact in reducing crime. 

The Court of Auditors, in 2020, recommended France “initiate an evaluation of the effectiveness of video surveillance of public roads, particularly in solving crimes and offences, with the help of researchers and experts”. 

France’s data protection authority, CNIL, has also noted a lack of evaluation of the effectiveness of video surveillance cameras across France. 

Sociologist Laurent Mucchielli, research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, conducted a survey for his book Vous êtes filmés! in 2018 that found video surveillance is used more in urban management and to issue fines than to combat theft and burglaries. 

Rising crime rates

In Jarnac, the number of criminal acts and offences rose from 132 to 136 in 2023 according to Interior Ministry data, despite the high number of security cameras in the town. 

However, the crime rate is 30 per 1,000 people, putting it at 15,837th on the list of most dangerous towns in France (out of over 34,000).

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France’s use of video surveillance hit the headlines around the Paris Olympics, when authorities used AI-powered algorithmic video surveillance (AVS) to monitor crowds.

Its use is still permitted, in a plan that has been criticised by groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.