Concerns over the withdrawal of police-population cohesion delegates

Les quartiers Saint-Césaire et le Mas Roman font partie du dispositif Participation Citoyenne.

Les présidents de comités de quartier et de l’UCQNM ne comprennent pas cette décision.

These are the first two districts in Nîmes to officially express concern about the withdrawal of the police-population cohesion delegates. The presidents of the Puech-du-Teil and Saint Césaire-Mas Roman committees still can't believe it: these civilian reservists of the national police have been sidelined since the start of the school year in September, " for an indefinite period. "It's an interruption at least until the end of the year, due to lack of budget, the representative for my sector told me,", explains Michel Aubert, president of the Union of Neighborhood Committees of Nîmes Métropole (UCQNM) and the Montaury committee.

These two delegates played an important role in Nîmes in the framework of the system to combat delinquency and burglaries, Citizen Participation, set up in 2011: it was to them that trained volunteer residents turned to report any anomalies. For Jean-Daniel Depoudent and René Genti, presidents of the Puech-du-Teil and Saint-Césaire committees, this withdrawal appears to be "an aberration". "After the Olympic and Paralympic Games, everyone had nothing but words to say that everything had gone well in terms of security. This is true and so much the better, but Paris has suddenly become the only city concerned with the safety of its residents and the districts of other cities have been neglected for the period of the Games and now well beyond, deplores Jean-Daniel Depoudent. Nîmes is no exception to the rule."

“The equivalent of a community police”

Puech-du-Teil was, in the city, the first sector to join what was then called Voisins vigilants. “Now 13 years ago, we signed the charter with the City and the State because there was so much incivility of all kinds. This has borne fruit. The agreement between the committee, on the one hand, and the national and municipal police, on the other, has greatly contributed to the spectacular drop in incivility.” In Saint-Césaire and Mas Roman, the message is identical: “ The police-population cohesion delegates are a necessary link between the committee, and with it the residents, and the police”, explains René Genti, the president. “It is the equivalent of a community police force because the committees are the eyes of the neighborhood, summarizes Michel Aubert, president of the UCQNM. Today we no longer have anyone to whom we can report problems. Apart from the municipal councillor… All the committees adhering to Citizen Participation, 21 in Nîmes, are concerned."

And these three presidents demanded that these key positions be reinstated. Asked several times, the Prefecture, representing the State in the Gard, did not provide any additional explanations.