In Sète, the City is deploying new video surveillance cameras in the Île de Thau district

Plusieurs caméras ont vocation à être installées sur les toits. Midi Libre – EVA TISSOT

Dans les prochaines semaines, la Ville entend renforcer son dispositif de surveillance par la vidéo dans le quartier populaire. Cela portera à seize le nombre de caméras dans ce secteur.

The City of Sète validated, at the end of March, the installation of fourteen new video surveillance cameras in the Ile de Thau district. Corresponding to a way of fighting against delinquency and trafficking, the system must be deployed "in the coming months", indicates the&rsquo ;municipal security assistant, Patrick André.

The elected official does not specify where and when exactly these new systems will be installed. We just know that the City has signed an agreement with the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion (ANCT), owner of the building of the new shopping center, for an installation on the roof. "These cameras will be connected to the future urban supervision center", currently being developed in the new eastern district of the city.

Fourteen new cameras

A new deployment welcomed by Aurélien Lopez-Liguori, municipal councilor of the National Rally. "Video surveillance is a necessity to stem trafficking and crime", is convinced the far-right elected official, who denounces the appeals brought by the League for Human Rights, in recent weeks in Sète and Montpellier, to limit its installation.

These fourteen cameras will bring their total number in the Thau Island district to sixteen. If their deployment will be subject "to the progress of work in the neighborhood", specifies Patrick André, the elected official also reports "security problems" for the people in charge of their installation. The latter being at the mercy of dealers and traffickers. Head of the Ensemble for Sète list, left-wing elected official Véronique Calueba shares her skepticism. "Install them on the roofs ? Is this a announcement effect ? They are not going to stay, your cameras…", thinks the departmental elected official. The latter will however be equipped "with a safety dome", specifies Patrick André.

A police station would be counterproductive according to the City

More broadly, the left-wing opposition is worried about seeing cameras gradually replacing field police. "I would like to be sure that the action of the municipal and national police will be maintained and reinforced, that we are not sure about replacing the human presence. Because currently, people are afraid", reports Véronique Calueba, who suggests the creation of a municipal police station "for an answer long term" on the island of Thau.

"The presence will always be the same, replies the security official. A police station is of no use in such a neighborhood. It is better to have municipal police officers outside, on the sidewalks, rather than chatting in an office. If you open a police station, there will have to be on-call duty and we don't have the means. In addition, dealers will monitor who enters and who leaves." On site, the City already deploys a mobile station two days a week, with the time slot "could soon be extended".

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