Police back on the beat

A NEW kind of local police officer, called a patrouilleur (patroller) is being tested in four cities just six years after beat police were taken off the
streets by Nicolas Sarkozy when he was interior minister.

The patrol officers, who will work in pairs, are supposed to “reassure local people by their frequent presence”, according to current interior minister Claude Guéant.

They are being trialled in Nice, Strasbourg, Poitiers and Mantes-la-Jolie. The results of the experiment will be evaluated this summer and if they are positive, the local officers will start to be used throughout the country.

The head of the DCSP, the Central Directorate of Public Security, Jacques Fournier, who is in charge of the police, said that the aim of the patrollers was to “increase the visibility of police officers in uniform” and to “fulfil the traditional objectives of prevention, dissuasion and thesuppression of crime”.

He denied they were simply the old police de proximité, a kind of officer brought in by Lionel Jospin and removed subsequently by Mr Sarkozy. While police de proximité had one particular part of town as their beat, the patrouilleurs will be more flexible to patrol in areas according to changes in crime patterns. This will place them in the front line of the police presence in their areas. The new officers are not being recruited specifically, however, but taken from within existing police forces to expand their presence on the streets.