Some believe that the Champ-de-Mars, located at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, is the symbol of a capital which has lost its splendor.
While complaints for rape and testimonies of assault have followed one another for several years in this sector plagued by scams and delinquency, the deputy director of the office of the prefect of police, Élise Lavielle, defended the approach of the Olympic Games the recent security assessment of the authorities in the area.
She indicated that the Champ-de-Mars, as well as the nearby Place du Trocadéro, was the subject of a
“specially dedicated security plan”
, the police headquarters wishing to guarantee the safety of Parisians and visitors.
Thus, over the year 2023, 143
“joint operations with the municipal police”
were carried out, particularly targeting street sales of key rings, miniature statuettes or even cigarettes, bonneteau game scams, and Clandestine
“
tuk-tuks
”
, these motorized tricycles presented as romantic transport, and circulating without license plates or seat belts.
Their drivers, sometimes without a license, practice a scam called
“magic multiplication”
: they set a price for the customer before the trip, then multiply it on arrival according to the number of passengers transported, to everyone's surprise.
A “paradoxical” local assessment
To combat these
“phenomena of delinquency”
, Élise Lavielle ensures that
“mobile reinforcements”
, as well as
“riders of the Republican Guard”
, are regularly deployed to ensure a
“permanent and visible presence”
in order to
“provide a response fast".
Last year, more than 6,100 police personnel were mobilized on the Champ-de-Mars - Trocadéro - Eiffel Tower site, often in conjunction with the SNCF and the RATP to secure public transport lines and stations.
The deputy director also cites the
“PAM”
, for mobile reception station,
“which provides the functions of a police station open every day from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the foot of the Eiffel Tower”,
and the
“video protection cameras which allow 'direct patrols'
.
Four short months before the Olympic Games, Élise Lavielle also defended the results of the
“tourism plan”
, which took place from June 15 to October 22, 2023, and which should be applied again in 2024.
“During (this) plan, intentional attacks on physical integrity recorded a drop of 49% and attacks on property by 29% compared to the same period in 2022
,” she indicated.
For a field police officer interviewed by
Le Figaro
, these local statistics appear
“very paradoxical”
compared to
“national indicators”
, which
“raise questions and even concerns in terms of security on the eve of the Olympics”.
He thus reminds us that intentional assault and battery on people aged 15 or over is “
progressing significantly
” in 2023 compared to the previous year (+7%), as well as fraud (+7%) and the number of destructions and deliberate damage (+3%), as noted in a preliminary publication from the Ministerial Statistical Service for Internal Security (SSMSI).
Nearly 6,000 verbalizations
Overall, over the entire year 2023 in this sector of the Champ-de-Mars, 51,300 people were
“evicted”
, 5,928 fines issued, 14,600 kilos of goods seized and 1,828 simplified reports drawn up for street sales.
127 operations dedicated to irregular immigration were also carried out, giving rise to 1,528 checks of individuals, 288 placements in police custody, and 256 issuance of obligations to leave French territory (OQTF).
The security plan put in place
“will only increase in strength until the Olympic Games”
, promised Élise Lavielle.
A well-received security reinforcement, in particular from the Paris en Commun - Ecology for Paris list which discussed during this session of the Paris Council the redevelopment project for the sector, which Anne Hidalgo wishes to green and pedestrianize, but which has just too late for the opposition.
“We continued to alert the Paris town hall and the police headquarters of this deterioration of the Champ-de-Mars, and we had to wait 4 years for the socialist town hall to take up (the subject)
,” said Moreover, Paris councilor René-François Bernard, from the Changer Paris group (Republicans, Centrists and Independents), severely criticized Paris councilor René-François Bernard, shortly after Élise Lavielle spoke.