“The attack on the Champs has shown that every uniformed agent is a target,” exclaims Nathalie Kosciusko, president of the LR group at the Paris Council. Faced with this observation, his political party wants to change the armament and safety uniform of the security inspectors of the city of Paris (ISVP), and will file a wish in this direction to the Paris Council which begins this Tuesday.
“Trained and equipped with lethal weaponry”
On April 21, a hundred security inspectors, on strike, had gathered in front of City Hall to demand a “development of their weapons.” At the call of the CFTC and the UCP (Union of Paris executives), this movement was intended to claim “at least initially a non-lethal weapons” for the more than 1,000 municipal officers tasked with combating the “incivilities” of everyday life. Currently they are equipped with a Tonka and a tear gas bomb “when terrorists are equipped with a weapon of war,” note Republicans.
Favorable for several years to an “armed municipal police”, NKM recovers from the security file and asks that the security inspectors can “without distinction wear a tactical bulletproof safety jacket“, that “the totality of the ISVP profits from a non-lethal armament, defensive bullet launcher (LBD) or electric impulse pistol “. Finally, the LR Group wishes that the “voluntary ISVPs be trained and equipped with lethal weapons”. Some political parties remain opposed to this development.
“It would be a disturbing rise in rank,” reacts David Billiard, co-chair of the Ecology Group of Paris (GEP). On the side of the municipal executive, we do not comment this wish but we recall the work in progress on the issue.
“We are not closed”
“We are not closed to the question of strengthening the armament to improve the mission of the agents”, one recalls to the city hall. After the strike movement of the agents, a delegation of agents was received at the office of the mayor. An administrator has been commissioned to study rapidly the conditions of any weapon allocation, lethal or non-lethal.
“We will work with the agents to assess the needs of their missions. We want them to do their job in the best conditions, “AFP Colombes Brussels, security assistant to the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, told AFP, recalling that the agents had already been equipped with bullet-proof safety vest.