Agreements end protests by police officers and gendarmes

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The end of 2001 was marked by major unrest within France's national police force and Gendarmerie nationale, against a backdrop of debates on the issue of public safety. However, the actions ended after agreements were negotiated with the relevant ministries, providing additional pay and resources for both groups.

Late 2001 saw the the largest wave of protests and strikes in the police for a decade, involving the national police force (Police nationale, employed by the Ministry of the Interior) and the Gendarmerie nationale (military personnel employed by the Defence Ministry) (FR0112115N). In an attempt to end the dispute involving the national police, on 29 November 2001, the Minister of the Interior, Daniel Vaillant, managed to broker an agreement with several trade unions among the many organisations in the sector, where representation is highly fragmented. The signatories were mostly members of the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA)- UNSA-Police and the General Independent Civil Servants' Federation (Fédération Générale Autonome des Fonctionnaires, FGAF) - which between them obtained the most votes in the most recent workplace elections in the national police force.

This agreement brings an increase of over EUR 381 million in the funding allocated to the national police force. In 2002, some 3,000 jobs are to be created, while pay rises worth EUR 90 to EUR 100 per month are to be granted to middle-ranking police officers. The agreement additionally provides for increased legal protection for police officers, and the introduction of an annual 'National Police Day', aimed at bringing rank-and-file police officers, their commanding officers and superintendents closer to the population they serve.

This agreement has been stringently criticised by Alliance (the second largest rank-and-file police officers' union) and Synergie (a high-ranking officers' union), both member organisations of the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff-General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l'encadrement-Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC). The General Police Union (Syndicat général de la Police, SGP), an affiliate of the General Confederation of Labour-Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière, CGT-FO), also refused to sign the agreement.

In early December 2001, the wave of protest reached the gendarmerie, a military body responsible for performing a policing function. The results obtained by the police officers in the agreement signed on 29 November, compared with the perceived inadequacy of the Minister of Defence's proposals to the gendarmerie, seem to have sparked off this action. Dispensing with their duty to refrain from criticising their working conditions on 4 December 2001, 300 uniformed gendarmes in Montpellier and 350 others in Marseille took part in demonstrations. The next day, 700 gendarmes in Nantes, 300 in Amiens and Orléans, and 200 in Bastia followed the same course of action. The gendarmes' demands focused particularly on more modern and effective equipment, higher staffing levels and higher wages. The Minister of Defence, Alain Richard, cast aspersions on these actions, labelling them 'local initiatives, incompatible with the sense of public service of which gendarmes are proud'. However, due to the scope of the actions, talks were reopened.

On 8 December 2001, an in camera meeting was held between the Defence Minister, the representatives of the non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and officers of the département-level sections of the gendarmerie, and the members of the gendarmerie's High Commission for the Military Service (Conseil supérieur de la fonction militaire [gendarmerie]), since military personnel do not have union representation in France. At the end of the meeting, the Minister announced a pay rise worth at least EUR 1,800 per year, to be introduced between December 2001 and the end of January 2003. Moreover, between the end of November 2001, and the end of February 2002, all gendarmes will receive an extra EUR 150 per month on average.

The Minister also announced a recruitment plan for 2000-5 involving the creation of 6,000 NCO posts. Gendarmes' living and working conditions are also set to improve noticeably, with: 50,000 bullet-proof vests to be provided by mid-2002; the replacement of vehicles more than eight years old; the provision of information technology in gendarmerie brigades; and the adoption of a plan to renovate accommodation in barracks.

Following the agreements reached in the national police force and the gendarmerie, relative calm has returned to the forces of order. However, despite France having one of the highest per capita ratios of police officers and gendarmes to civilians in Europe, the issue of public safety (or the lack of it) is a delicate one: the fact that during the police protests a new law on the 'presumption of innocence', which is more respectful of the rights of accused people, was called into question, testifies to this.