Le Figaro Marseille
“Ahmed, come, come! Look, there’s one there!”
In the room of the urban supervision center of the Marseille municipal police, Laëtitia calls on Ahmed Jaoui, head of the environment brigade of the Marseille city.
The one who is a public highway surveillance officer has her eyes glued to her computer.
The image is projected in large format on the wall of screens facing them and their colleagues.
In the image, a man gets out of a white van and fills the bin intended for household waste with concrete slabs.
The scene takes place in the northern districts, near the La Rose district, in the 13th arrondissement.
“Zoom! Zoom!”
Romain, a municipal police officer, takes control of the camera until he gets a close-up of the man in action.
This practice is illegal and causes the individual to incur a fine of 135 euros.
“We need the plate
,” says Ahmed Jaoui, who immediately grabs his phone to warn his teams on the ground so that they can get closer to the location of the offender.
“But they’re not nearby, it’s going to be complicated
,” he worries.
Another problem: the car is parked behind a trash can which hides the rear of the vehicle.
Behind their computers, the police do not take their eyes off the van.
The man continues to unload his plasterboard, before leaving, leaving his license plate clearly visible.
"It's good !
We have it,”
rejoices Laëtitia.
Ahmed Jaoui displays a huge smile.
“With the license plate, we will be able to report it and contact the public prosecutor of Marseille
,” explains the police officer.
A situation that has happened regularly at the Marseille urban supervision center since the creation of the environment brigade in December 2021.
“Flatbed trucks are clearly a target,”
proclaims Laëtitia.
When we see one on the screen, we follow it, because for them, it's the fastest.
They park, lift and dump everything before leaving.
It takes them two minutes flat.”
The Marseille trash police officers most often face polluters from the professional world, particularly the construction industry, who get rid of their trash illegally, piling it up on the ground in the four corners of the city, instead of to go to recycling centers provided for this purpose.
Read also Uncontrolled construction dump: judicial investigation opened in the Alpes-Maritimes
Zero tolerance
“The watchword is zero tolerance,”
insists Ahmed Jaoui.
We are no longer here to do prevention.
Now, we are making arrests and reports.”
To do this, the 14 agents who make up the environment brigade rely on the city's video surveillance cameras.
Laëtitia is now turning her attention to another location in Marseille, known by the police as an active illegal dump, in the 12th arrondissement.
At the end of a dead end, wooden planks pile up alongside furniture, mattresses and other iron bars.
“I look at the cameras that are nearby to see if there is any suspicious movement,”
explains Laëtitia
.
But we don't have a camera in front of the landfill..."
To overcome this difficulty, seven
"nomadic cameras"
are deployed discreetly, with the advantage of being able to be easily moved from one place to another depending on needs. .
During a press conference last Thursday, the city of Marseille announced the purchase of ten additional portable cameras to strengthen the teams.
“What is very encouraging is that on sites identified as black spots, we have really won the game and there are no longer any illegal dumps
,” says Ahmed Jaoui.
In Zoccolat, in the northern districts of the city, on a site well known to the municipal police services as being a very active illegal dump, the municipal police managed to arrest several individuals in flagrante delicto last week, leading to their custody. on sight.
A few days later, on the same Zoccolat site where street vendors operate, the pile of waste has significantly reduced.
However, some trash remains, left behind by street vendors.
“Pedestrians are more complicated,”
notes Ahmed Jaoui.
If we are not on site, we cannot question or carry out remote identification.
We have to send someone to catch someone in flagrante delicto.
We can report everything but we act as a priority.”
In 2021, the environment brigade carried out 99 procedures.
In 2023, this figure will be around 270, almost triple.
In the most serious cases, offenders face a fine of 75,000 euros and two years in prison.