A night brigade of the municipal police has been running for a week in Aix-les-Bains

Around the Boulevard Franklin Roosevelt in Aix-les-Bains, the inhabitants of the Crusaders are for the most part skeptical. City police patrolling at night? It was a campaign promise from Mayor Renaud Beretti during the municipal elections last year. The night security brigade of Aix-les-Bains is created, and carried out its first patrol on May 4th.

To view this Twitter content, you must accept Social Network cookies. These cookies allow you to share or react directly on the social networks to which you are connected or to integrate content originally posted on these social networks. They also allow social networks to use your visits to our sites and applications for the purposes of personalization and advertising targeting.

"We are in Aix les Bains, we are rather in a fairly quiet city, we are not in Paris. I think that is a bit exaggerated" says a local resident, accompanied by her two children very young. For this pensioner, crossed two streets further, "it can be a good thing. If there are no police circulating at night, some people may think they are allowed everything". Even during curfew. This other Aixoise recognizes the frequent incivilities, the motorcycles launched at full speed on the sidewalks or the drug trafficking at the bottom of certain buildings. But for her, _"_we do not solve the problem: we can put cowboys against cowboys, we are going to be in a cowboy game".

"The term 'cowboy', I won't even mention it" asks the principal brigadier immediately. He insists on the false image that the population of the municipal police, armed since 2016 in Aix-les-Bains, can have.

A new brigade in a reinforced municipal police force

The agents have telescopic defense batons - the tonfas -, electric pulse guns - the tasers -, semi-automatic pistols, LBD (defense bullet launcher) and gas. Recruitments took place a few months ago within the Aix municipal police, and dedicated training was organized, in particular training in "technical intervention gestures", in police jargon. Clarification: the municipal police cannot make an arrest. For the principal chief brigadier, we must not speak of an all-repressive policy: "whoever says repressive says offence. And if there is no repressive, there is preventive and relational".

The municipal police of Aix-les-Bains has 13 officers - in barely two years, the number has already doubled - and within a year and a half, the objective is to gradually recruit seven additional officers. At the end of the summer, a total of six police officers will be trained to form this night security brigade. There will be a dog handler among them. "As we go, we will have two crews available. Plus the national police, it will quickly turn to three or four crews" assures the guard brigadier.

"It was a political promise from the mayor"

The return of local policing?

For the principal chief brigadier, it is the role of the municipal police to develop proximity. According to him, it must be known to the inhabitants, "we are not the anti-crime brigade. The objective is to be seen". And to add: “people would be amazed at the prevention”. Since the launch of the night security brigade, the crew even distributes business cards. "Which means getting to know the shopkeepers, the emergencies and all the staff likely to work at night" he adds.

"We really are local police"

The routes are not pre-established. Before leaving for the field, at 5 p.m., the municipal police officers of the brigade come into contact with their national counterparts. They then decide on their round, in traffic control mode or in patrol mode. They also intervene at the request of local residents, to control building commons, for example.

No fooling around, of course, the creation of this brigade is part of a security political strategy. The principal chief brigadier is aware of this. "I think it's very politicized. It has become a strength for the mayor to be able to endow himself with his own security. He is the guardian of the security of his constituents. So inevitably, politically, it will come out. It was a campaign promise." On the city council, opponents of the mayor have also supported the idea.