Le Figaro Nantes
This has not happened since 1991. The city of Nantes announced on Monday its own recruitment competition to fill the ranks of its municipal police force. Complementary to the competition organized in Angers by the management center of the Loire-Atlantique department, this exam for access to the rank of guard-brigadier thus intends to open new access to the Nantes police - and above all makes it possible to communicate on the hiring of new recruits. There is an emergency: after numerous retirements, the municipal police of Nantes today find themselves seriously short of staff.
“We need some good guys (sic)! Today there are only 130 agents, including 90 in the field, out of the 235 police officers that we are supposed to be able to field in 2026,”
tells Le
Figaro
Céline Peremarty, Force Ouvrière delegate within the Nantes municipal police. The union representative is delighted with the internal competition in the city of Nantes, the tests of which will take place this summer.
“It was a pressing request, which should make it possible to attract more incumbents in the Nantes area,”
adds the police officer, who describes a difficult recruitment.
“It happens over time
,” she observes.
Priority is given to neighboring municipalities, so much so that we have already found ourselves with police officers who were no longer fit for duty…”.
At least 20 agents would be urgently needed to run all the brigades properly, she estimates.
The fire war
However, the Nantes municipal police are indeed recruiting. As the municipality repeatedly repeats, more than 70 agents have been hired since January 2021. The numerous departures - transfers or end of career - however drown out this influx of new blood. In three years, the net balance of staff would have increased... by only around fifteen people. Hence the need to open the floodgates. A first carrot was the revaluation of agents’ compensation. But the prospect of becoming a municipal police officer in Nantes would still have to arouse some vocations.
We would have less difficulty recruiting if we gave municipal police officers the means to defend themselves
Mounir Belhamiti, Renaissance deputy for Loire-Atlantique
For opposition elected official Julien Bainvel (LR), this would not be won.
“Not only is the profession in tension on a national scale, but candidates must also prepare for particularly difficult conditions of practice in Nantes, while knowing that they will not have the right to carry a weapon »
, remarks the municipal councilor.
“Recruiting is good, but we also need to build loyalty
,” observes the Renaissance deputy for the 1st constituency of Loire-Atlantique, Mounir Belhamiti, a supporter of lifting the Nantes taboo on the arming of municipal agents.
“We would have less difficulty recruiting if we gave them the means to defend themselves,”
he confides.
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A request shared by those concerned, who have long demanded the right to carry
“lethal weapons”
in addition to telescopic batons and tasers, confirms Céline Peremarty.
“The absence of firearms is one of the specificities of Nantes which can dissuade candidates, in the same way as the price of housing,”
agrees the police officer. Before adding, with a note of bitterness:
“The mayor's little words about municipal police officers who would be incapable of preventing rapes did not help either.”
A late wake-up call
Leaving aside this war of fire and words, the elected officials contacted by
Le Figaro
welcome the announcement of the upcoming competition. Everyone wonders, however. Why did you wait until halfway through Nantes Mayor Johanna Rolland's second term to launch this initiative?
“It’s useful, but it comes very late! The explosion
of violence in Nantes
has been a problem for almost eight years now
, notes Foulques Chombart de Lauwe, elected municipal representative for the Republicans in the city of Nantes.
Once again, Johanna Rolland is content to achieve - late - 10% of what is necessary.
An observation shared by Mounir Belhamiti.
“How much time wasted…”
laments the MP.
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So many criticisms which in no way affect Bassem Asseh, first deputy at the City of Nantes, in charge of security.
“Organizing a territorial civil service competition is not a simple process. Unlike the private sector, it is not enough to press a button!”,
he declares to Le
Figaro
, specifying that the city of Nantes has been working on this competition since the summer of 2023 and that it is, according to him, the only city in France, outside Paris, to have set up this system.
“Yes, the procedures are long and incompressible, but they will, I hope, attract a new pool of people from Nantes.”
In the meantime, due to a lack of sufficient human resources, the municipal police continue to rely on their most proactive agents.
“We still don't have a single complete evening brigade, so end-of-day patrols are carried out by colleagues who extend their hours on a voluntary basis,”
says Céline Peremarty. An expedient which, according to the person concerned, cannot continue forever.