"Searching for the Grand Paris" "How is the security of the territories of the Grand Paris organized?" -When we look at the geography of the Grand Paris, we can see that there are strong differences. There are highly-protected, sensitive areas. Paris is a capital, a political, administrative and religious site, with the upsurge in terrorism. We can often see soldiers circulating in public spaces, which is often explained by the proximity of a religious site. There is La Défense, which is a highly sensitive location, a potential target for terrorist actions, with the mobilization of huge private and public means. There are transportation centers, the train stations, and now the airports as well, since the Charles-de-Gaulle and Le Bourget airports are now within the perimeter of the Préfecture de Police, and soon so will Orly. So there are highly-protected sensitive sites. At the other end of the spectrum, there are sites which are much less accessible to police forces, where police forces have little influence. It is better to see them that way than as "lawless areas". Lawless areas taken literally cannot exist. There are no areas where the police cannot go. The police can enter any sensitive area in Seine-Saint-Denis. However, they will be able to enter more or less easily. In such areas, it will be present massively and occasionally for interventions and absent the rest of the time. So this is the other extreme. When you talk to people from Seine-Saint-Denis, living in social housing, people from lower classes, they have varied and mixed opinions on police forces. More than anywhere else, they think that the police are not doing enough, and they also say, more than anywhere else, that police interventions are too brutal. So we have territories, which are not lawless areas, where the police are present less regularly and then, the rest. "What difference will the Grand Paris make in terms of security?" Regarding the police and security, the situation is peculiar. Why? Because, as I mentioned, the Préfecture is the main actor. The Préfecture de Police was reorganized in 2009 and almost predated the Grand Paris since the inner suburbs were included under the Préfecture de Police. So there have been adjustments, which I mentioned, regarding the internal deconcentration of the Préfecture de Police and the leeway given to territories. Local authorities faced the same issue. Will the Métropole du Grand Paris change anything? The short answer, regarding prevention and security, is that it will not change much. From this standpoint, we are way below goals set in the late 2000s. The report Dallier was written by a senator from Seine-Saint-Denis and talked about the "metropolization" of security. And we are very far from that, to say the least. What initiatives were taken in terms of prevention and security at the intercommunal level? There is a metropolitan security council which advises on the metropolis's delinquency prevention plan. It is a little too early to tell, but it is more of an advisory board. We can assume it is not going to play a very important part. Then, there is cooperation between territorial public institutions when it comes to prevention. In some territorial public institutions, there is intercommunal support for networks giving access to the law. Sometimes, there is the creation of an intercommunal police force, but it is rare. Police forces are still municipal. They can also support an intercommunal video surveillance network. So there are some initiatives which are still minor today and which can usually be explained by the fact that, for mayors, prevention and security is an issue that they rarely delegate. They want to keep managing this issue. So to conclude on the subject, I would say that there are some initiatives. They are moderate and are more oriented toward prevention than police or security. We can forecast, and forecasts exist to be corrected, that it may only change incrementally in the future because it has not changed much over the last 20 years.
