Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez proposed on Friday an increase in the police special hardship allowance (ISSP), the risk premium, deemed “insufficient” or even “inadmissible” by the unions at the end of a meeting at Place Beauvau.
“Given the unprecedented risks to which police officers and gendarmes are currently exposed,” explains the Interior after this meeting, the minister “was keen to present to the representative organizations a plan for revaluing the special hardship allowance (known as risk premium), which had not been revalued since 2019”.
This revaluation, which would bring the rate of this bonus to 33.5%, “would be carried out over three years, until 2029, with a first step in April 2027. On this basis, discussions are continuing”, assures the ministry in a message to the press, underlining the “constrained budgetary context”.
“The schedule is wrong. It’s insufficient,” replied the secretary general of Unsa Police Thierry Clair. This proposal is “intolerable” for Alliance, “well below what we expect” according to Un1té.
“This is not tolerable, it is even unacceptable. I was even going to say that it is indecent to find yourself in such a situation. I feel like I'm begging and, believe me, I'm almost ashamed. I am sad for all my colleagues this evening,” said Alliance Secretary General Fabien Vanhemelryck. “I’m disgusted.”
“The minister tells us that the subject is still on the table, that he hopes to do better. We really wish him to do better. Because at the moment, that doesn’t satisfy us at all,” added Grégory Joron, secretary general of Un1té.
The increase in the ISSP bonus to a rate of 35% has been demanded by all police unions for several months. Created in 1958, it is the result of the merger of risk and danger premiums. It is included in the calculation of the retirement pension of national police officials.
Calling on other organizations to “stand together to defend the profession of police,” Alliance promised to toughen its tone next week, launching “a call for all possible and imaginable strikes.”
Nicolas Sarkozy, who spoke exclusively to Le Figaro this Friday, November 13, expressed his fears about the evolution of the high school movement. For the former president, it is “still too early to definitively qualify what happened.” “Especially since I fear that this is only the beginning,” he continues.
“Certainly, the failure of French-style integration and the failure to control immigration have made things worse, but I believe that sticking to this single reading grid would be committing a historical error. Because it does not seem to me that the suburbs participated in the Terror or the horrors of the Commune! From this point of view, the riots that I experienced in 2005 were perhaps more related to questions of immigration and integration than those of last month... The novelty is therefore not in the explosion of violence, but in the unprecedented feeling of powerlessness of the State and absence of authority! This is what scares us and should question us,” he adds.
OUR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Faced with an intensification of violence, the government is asking rectors and prefects to strengthen and systematize disciplinary sanctions against students and National Education staff participating in blockades of high schools and damage. According to a telegram sent Friday, the Ministers of the Interior and National Education, Laurent Nuñez and Édouard Geffray, ask the authorities to “ensure a very early presence” in front of establishments subject to blockages and a “systematic arrest of troublemakers”.
They also ask that calls for “violence, damage to property, blocking of access to interior spaces of the establishment, physical or verbal violence towards staff, etc.”, committed by students, result in a disciplinary council and possible sanctions. In the most serious cases, they provide for a ban on access to the establishment for the duration of the procedure. This framework applies both to acts committed within the establishment and outside “if they are likely to seriously interfere (with) the functioning of an establishment”, specifies the document consulted by AFP.
These sanctions also concern public agents (teachers, supervisors, etc.) “required to an obligation of exemplarity, reserve, neutrality”. From now on “any speech contrary” to this duty of reserve can lead to a disciplinary procedure, affirm the ministers, calling for “staff who do not carry out their service voluntarily” to be considered as strikers, such as teachers refusing to welcome students within the framework of scheduled hours. In "the most serious cases (harm to people, endangerment, etc.)", "it is possible to suspend those concerned as a precautionary measure", they continue, the day after the Prime Minister's remarks evoking possible complicity on the part of staff in the violence around high schools.
“Hardening”
“Even if there are colleagues concerned, this remains to be demonstrated, procedures are planned,” reacted Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the first high school union. “What is the need to throw them out to public opinion, to point out the staff, if not in a strategy of hardening the response and worsening the situation,” she added, denouncing a “provocation”. Sébastien Lecornu spoke on Thursday of the case of high schools where “logistical planning is being put in place to deliver the mortars” of fireworks with, according to him, “people who sometimes, within the very confines of this high school, engage in complicity”. “There is a certain amount of information coming back to us which is totally in this direction,” Laurent Nuñez added on Friday on LCI, while referring to a “tiny minority of cases”.
The Minister of Education, for his part, cited on Friday, during a trip to Bourges, a “very specific case in Nîmes where a trainee teacher threw a 400 gram paving stone at the police during a blocking movement in front of a high school”. “So, yes, unfortunately there are cases (...),” he continued. According to the Ministry of National Education, 0.3% of high schools were blocked this Friday (i.e. around ten high schools out of the 3,700 existing establishments). Figures contested by youth organizations. Numerous incidents involving firework mortars have taken place in recent days in France, causing disruption and sometimes causing injuries. According to the Ministry of National Education, 0.3% of high schools were blocked this Friday (i.e. around ten high schools out of the 3,700 existing establishments). Figures contested by youth organizations.
Also read Masked individuals, outbreak of fire: in Nantes, four teenagers in police custody after a violent intrusion into a high school
The State will extend the authorization to open on Sundays to Parisian leather goods, travel goods and clothing businesses in the districts affected by the looting and damage of October 17, the Île-de-France prefecture announced on Friday, the eve of Act V against the “high cost of living”. The regional prefecture had already allowed food retail businesses, jewelry stores and department stores to open three last week. Sundays in a row in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 15th and 20th arrondissements of the capital.
While many Parisian businesses close their doors on Saturdays during demonstrations, particularly on the parade route, the prefecture authorizes new branches in these same sectors to “open exceptionally” on Sundays, November 15 and 22 and December 27 “in order to support their activity”. Retail establishments selling leather goods and travel items, as well as clothing, will be able to benefit from these exemptions if they request them, specifies the prefecture in a press release. The Île-de-France region and the City of Paris announced at the end of October an emergency fund of 13 million euros to help the approximately 450 businesses vandalized on the sidelines of the demonstrations against the high cost of living on October 17 and 18, according to the town hall census.
On Thursday, the regional council led by Valérie Pécresse (LR) adopted an initial flat-rate aid of 5,000 euros “without waiting for insurance compensation to repair the damage and replace damaged equipment as quickly as possible”. As well as additional aid of 2,000 euros to secure businesses (cameras, grilles, alarms, etc.) for which all establishments are eligible. To this regional aid will be added 2,500 euros from the City of Paris, 1,500 euros from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) and 1,500 euros from the Métropole du Grand Paris, “i.e. a total of up to 12,500 euros per business,” said the Region.
The mayors of the right-wing Parisian districts have contacted the Paris rectorate to ask the prefecture for measures to “secure the entrances and exits” of blocked high schools, we learned on Friday from the mayor of the 17th.
“We ask you to contact the police prefect without delay so that appropriate perimeter orders can be issued around the high schools concerned, making it possible to prevent gatherings likely to hinder access to establishments and cause disturbances to public order,” write in a letter addressed Tuesday to the rector of the Paris Academy the right-wing mayors of eight districts of the capital (5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 15th, 16th and 17th). These measures should be able to “secure entrances and exits from establishments, protect students and staff and guarantee all those who wish the possibility of following their lessons”, they continue.
“There is a resignation from the State in the face of the situation. Currently, the police do not have orders to unblock high schools. It is up to the rectorate and the prefecture to find the solutions,” Geoffroy Boulard, LR mayor of the 17th, told AFP at the initiative of the letter. “In our capacity as district mayors, we are regularly contacted by worried parents”, while “each day of lessons lost penalizes the students, further weakens those who are already encountering difficulties and compromises their preparation for the baccalaureate”, continues the letter.
Also read Violence in high schools: Sébastien Lecornu promises “systematic judicialization” and points to education staff who are sometimes “accomplices”
The National Education unions denounced on Friday the Prime Minister's comments on possible complicity of staff in the violence around high schools, accusing him of fueling tensions rather than contributing to their appeasement. “This statement by the Prime Minister is a provocation which can only lead to fueling tensions in an already critical situation,” Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the leading high school and college union, told AFP.
Sébastien Lecornu spoke on Thursday of the case of certain high schools where “logistical planning is being put in place to deliver the mortars” of fireworks with, according to him, “people who sometimes, within the very confines of this high school, engage in complicity”. “There is a certain amount of information coming back to us which is totally in this direction,” Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed on LCI on Friday morning, while referring to a “tiny minority of cases” and calling for caution.
For the unions, these statements implicate the staff without specific elements supporting the suspicions. “Even if there are colleagues concerned and this remains to be demonstrated, procedures are planned,” recalls Sophie Vénétitay.
Also read Education unions denounce Lecornu's comments on possible “complicity” of staff in high school violence
As the social movement takes hold, the catalytic role of social networks is no longer in doubt. To identify crisis signals and prevent violence, the executive is trying to sift through the platforms, where calls to demonstrate compete with inflammatory harangues. But, as the Minister of the Interior himself admitted, the executive struggles to identify the most viral videos, on TikTok in particular, and therefore to anticipate the scale of the movements. One of the failing elements of the system would be the Canadian software Talkwalker, with which the government signed a contract a little over a year ago.
This media monitoring tool allows you to analyze public data from social networks, alert on viral content or anticipate “buzz”. On the market, other specialized companies, such as Visibrain or Brandwatch, specialize in what specialists call “social listening” and “media monitoring”. “Talkwalker is an expert in processing raw data on social networks to make it usable,” explains Guillaume Sylvestre, teacher in data analysis at the School of Economic Warfare. “From a mass of data, it draws processed and cleaned data.”
THE FIGARO INVESTIGATION
For more than three weeks, the Parisian police have been engaged in a hunt of exceptional magnitude to identify the looters who swept through the capital during the riots of October 17. The scenes of rampage shocked the whole of France and the police found themselves with their backs against the wall before preparing the response. “From the outset, the machinery of the Police Prefecture had to respond to extraordinary problems,” explained this Thursday the divisional commissioner Nicolas Hergot, head of Territorial Security (ST 75), placed at the forefront of the investigations. An initial assessment reveals that 228 complaints from Parisian traders were filed for the looting.
An already significant number, which rises to 450 if we add the only damaged shops, whose windows were shattered, without the thugs having had time to rob them. “A single service could not handle such a volume of procedures,” continues this head of service, recalling that, moreover, the police forces involved arrested 1,250 thugs in flagrante delicto or with their arms loaded with stolen goods at the exit of metro or RER stations. No less than 850 of them were placed in police custody immediately, ten times more than a usual night in Paris, including 400 who were brought before the police.
