The State is pushing Valérie Pécresse to abandon two major regional security projects

The State rejects two flagship projects by Valérie Pécresse. The Ile-de-France region, chaired by presidential candidate LR, is asked to give up two of its flagship security projects, the financing of municipal police and security brigades for high schools.

The regional prefect sent Valérie Pécresse a gracious appeal on January 18, asking her to cancel three deliberations dating from 2017 and 2021 and relating to the “security shield” that she has been developing since her first election at the end of 2015, according to the mail consulted by AFP.

Jurisdiction of the mayor and the prefect

“No text can legally establish the subsidization by the Regional Council of municipal police equipment”, writes Marc Guillaume who recalls that “jurisdiction in matters of public order” belongs “to the mayor and the prefect of the department”.

“The Regional Council is therefore incompetent to grant this type of subsidy”, further affirms the representative of the State, basing himself on a case law of the administrative court of Marseille, which judged in 2019 that the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d ‘Azur “did not have jurisdiction to subsidize the municipal police in its region”.

“No legal basis”

Marc Guillaume also scratches the Regional Security Brigades (BRS), these agents divided into groups of 5 to secure the interior and surroundings of Ile-de-France high schools, for which “the legal basis for funding (…) is also lacking”.

In this he follows the Regional Chamber of Accounts (CRC) which had considered in a recent report that these BRS had “no legal basis”, this mission being entrusted to the State which can deploy its mobile security teams (EMS ).

Haro on drones

This gracious appeal follows several referrals under the control of legality of the opposition groups PCF and LFI, relating in particular to the opening to regional financing of lethal weapons and drones for the municipal police.

The communist group also challenged before the administrative justice the decision of Valérie Pécresse to finance the drones, while the Constitutional Council recently prohibited the municipal police from using them. “It’s the whole security shield that falls,” said Céline Malaisé, leader of the elected Communists, to AFP. “The credibility of Pécresse on these subjects is starting to be eroded”, commented Maxime des Gayets (PS).

Thinly Veiled Accusations

In an answer of which AFP had a copy, Valérie Pécresse is surprised “that, a few weeks before national elections, the Prefect of the Region suddenly takes an initiative aimed at calling into question the security shield”. The gracious appeal comes “after 6 years of application of this policy and 27 deliberations transmitted to its control, all validated, and while recent agreements with the State have been signed with the prefect of police”, underlines the candidate.

It reaffirms “that the Region is competent to subsidize the municipal police in the Ile-de-France territory, to support the equipment of the police and gendarmerie forces” and “to act for security in high schools thanks to the action of the BRS”.