They do the rounds at night in the most difficult Parisian districts or arrondissements, will soon be equipped with side-handled batons and sprays, they wear bulletproof vests, navy blue fatigues and ankle boots and, when the occasion demands, carry shields and handcuffs. But in contrast with the police officers with whom they sometimes patrol, their uniforms are marked GPIS (Groupement parisien inter-bailleurs de surveillance), referring to an organisation set up by public landlords of large social housing estates in Paris to patrol those areas. Nor do they have the same powers as the police.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Mediapart became interested in GPIS after an incident in May 2012 between young Parisians and agents from the organisation. An agent who was present claimed that GPIS had deliberately falsified evidence to suggest there had been an ambush.
The organization’s staff may not be police officers, but they are more than simply guards from a private security firm. GPIS, which since January 2011 has been run by retired divisional police superintendent Jean-Paul Bénas, is a non-profit making body. It was set up in 2004 following the desire by several public landlords of social housing in Paris to pool crime prevention efforts and surveillance on their estates. This groupement d'intérêt économique (GIE), as this type of structure is known, now has around 200 employees of whom 150 are on the ground watching over the communal parts of the housing estates between the hours of 7pm and 5am in ten Parisian arrondissements (covering 76,817 homes according to 2012 figures).
The organisation’s budget, which went from 8 million euros in 2005 to 12 million euros in 2012, gets half its funding from City Hall in Paris, which hands over 5.9 million euros in grants a year to the landlords concerned. And if an internal audit obtained by Mediapart is to be believed, this is a particularly generous contribution by the Paris authorities. “While other local authorities in France also fund pooled initiatives in the domain of residential security, none does it to the same level as the City of Paris,” say property services firm Icade Suretis in a summary of its internal report in March 2011. “In this the example of GPIS is unique.”
Valued by residents associations and local councillors, the GPIS model is watched with interest by authorities around the outskirts of Paris and across the rest of France. But within the organization the mood is rather different. Speaking on condition of anonymity, several employees and former employees have pointed to serious managerial failings and are concerned about a shift in their mission. For example, a patrol leader is furious at the way in which management had portrayed, wrongly according to him, the confrontation between GPIS agents and youths in the 20th arrondissement in Paris in May 2012 as if it were an ambush.
“The GPIS has the skill and the style to disguise things,” he says. “The tenants are happy because we have a good image, but it is all based on image. As soon as there's an incident management is straight on to City Hall and the public housing association Paris Habitat with a dossier, arguing that violence is increasing, that we need more money, that we should be armed etc. But it's them [management] who provoke it by sending too many or too few of us into areas where we risk getting beaten up.”
This is Mediapart's investigation.
'When there's one injured person on their side, there needs to be two on ours'
To believe press coverage and some local councillors around a hundred GPIS agents are injured each year. But that figure is grossly exaggerated. According to the GPIS itself, since 2004 some 269 agents have been injured and required more than a day off work, in other words an average of 'only' 33 a year. With agents sometimes facing the risk of iron bars, knives, washing machines, pétanque balls and other items being dropped on them, it's clear that they are not always welcomed in Parisian estates, where sometimes the agents disrupt drug dealers.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
However, several GPIS employees have spoken of the number of people wounded being inflated and of falsifying events to tailor them to legal proceedings, as in the confrontation in May in the 20th arrondissement. “We are told: ' When there's one injured person on their side, there needs to be two on ours',” says the patrol leader mentioned earlier. “When the guy in front of you is really hurt, it has more impact if you, too, go to court having had to take time off work. We do have people who are really hurt, but sometimes people hit themselves or scratch themselves on the face. In the same way all the cars have dents and marks. They can be counted several times, even if there was just one incident. Human injuries and material damage carry a lot of weight in front of the judges, especially faced with a guy who's already got a criminal record.”
The system suits everyone. “Management needs injured staff to bolster the stats and its budget, and we get holidays and damages with interest,” says the patrol leader.
An employee at private security firm Cave Canem who has worked several years a a subcontractor for GPIS says that the latter company's inspectors ask them to lie. “As soon as there is an altercation, physical or verbal, the inspectors arrive and tell us 'You weren’t faced with six but with ten', that it was they who started it and so on. Me, I falsified things like everyone. The injuries also help to bump up the statistics. Suppose someone twists an ankle, you call, signal a code red [to indicate an agent is hurt – editor's note] and straight away you absolutely have to make a formal complaint. They have taught us to be litigious.”
The GPIS is a very good customer of the court system in Paris, and nearly always at its own instigation. Its own agents are very rarely brought to court – there have been only two legal cases against its agents in eight years. The summary report mentioned earlier praises the “rigour of [their] behaviour, the absence of loss of control despite tense situations and despite being attacked, often leading to injuries”.
On the other hand, GPIS and its employees have been behind 557 legal cases since 2004, of which 403 are for assault and 154 for damage to property. To make the legal procedures involving GPIS staff easier the prosecution service in Paris has become accustomed to giving them the status of an “agent helping to carry out a public service”.
The patrol leader notes: “When there's an incident there's a debriefing where we prepare the statements with the group leaders. They call that 'taking charge of the legal procedure'. We listen to what has happened, then they say to us 'Tell the truth'. Whether you are in the wrong or not you are told what to say. The key is to know how to direct the police detective towards the elements of the case that are to our advantage. We have legal training for that.” He adds: “Meanwhile the guy who's in custody will use his own words. He always tends to lose. When we arrive at the police station we are always favoured by the police. That's to be expected, we work together, they are mates!”
According to the internal audit by Icade Suretis, 23% of GPIS agents were recorded as injured in 2010, a figure much higher than the percentage of police officers hurt in the same year – 6.5%. The resulting number of days off sick has an impact on the service they can provide. “While the number of patrols carried out in the course of the rounds of surveillance is in theory 18 per shift...[it] was just 12.7 in 2010,” notes the report. “This reduction is explained in particular by a growth in the number of sick days, themselves linked, in part, to the number of injuries while on duty.”
When asked about the debriefings that take place before formal legal complaints are made, the director of Paris Habitat and president of GPIS Stéphane Dambrine was indignant. “Are you saying that managers from the GPIS are committing the crime of influencing a witness? Can you imagine for a second that in an organisation working between independent public landlords and the City of Paris we get a kick out of asking agents to make false statements?”
As for the injuries of convenience highlighted by several agents, GPIS's operational director Didier Desous points out that the injuries have to be logged at the official unit of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris that deals with alleged crime-related injuries (1). “These units really authorise sick days sparingly,” says Desous. “We have already had cases of agents who, having declared themselves injured, have been given no sick days, who are not legally considered to be injured and who are thus not recorded as such.”
Yet according to Pascal Michou, a former GPIS agent in dispute with the management after he was sacked in January 2011, these hospital units are not too fastidious when it comes to officers in uniform. “You arrive at night in a navy blue uniform,” he explains. “You say 'We've just arrested a dealer, he hit me there and there.' The interns are overworked and are not going to delve any further. 'Where are you hurt? On the head?' And there you go, 'trauma to the head'. They sign everything.”
His comments are implicitly confirmed by a former manager at GPIS. “If we want to be credible we must pull out all the stops when there is a real problem in a difficult neighbourhood, not for a sprained little finger,” he argues. “The undermining of the system is to pretend that you are hurt on duty or to overstate the injury to get suitable compensation. During my time we put in place safeguards, such as ethical training.”
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1: In cases of suspected violent crime, the alleged victims are examined by a dedicated medical team, working in a hospital unit known as a 'unité médico-judiciaire' (UMJ). Their job is to determine the extent of the victim's injuries. Part of this involves determining the victim's capacity to work after sustaining their injuries, and then deciding how many days off sick - 'incapacité totale de travail' (ITT) they are entitled to. This figure is crucial because the ITT is used as an indicator of the seriousness of the crime by the judicial authorities.
'I now have to maintain order with shields?'
Each night a hundred agents carry out patrols in 30 vehicles. “That's more crews than that of the police in those same areas,” said Gilles Viguier, the former director of GPIS and himself a former police officer in an interview in June 2010 with the security agency AISG. That means that after five years of reductions in police numbers the inhabitants of the majority of Parisian housing estates have more chance of dealing with these private security agents than with police officers.
Enlargement : Illustration 4
This development is not new. Since 1995 the so-called loi Pasqua [Pasqua law], reinforced by a security law in November 2001, has placed an obligation of surveillance and security on property owners and managers. But the law also allows for the forces of law and order to intervene, at the request of landlords, in the communal areas of housing blocks and estates.
“The level of police staffing has not allowed them to carry out these kind of functions for a long time,” says Stéphane Dambrine, director of Paris Habitat and president of GPIS. “In an ideal world, if the police carried out this function, that would allow me as a landlord to save several million euros and to use that money for maintenance work on my buildings or other uses.”
Moreover, he says, since the law in 2003 that made unauthorised gatherings in residential block foyers a crime “it would be quite logical for the police to deal with it”. Faced with this growing privatisation of residential security, the GPIS approach therefore seems to him “the least bad, in the sense that it is done via a public body, totally led by the landlords”.
In Paris, it was a security surveillance society, Nord sécurite Service (N2S), who carried out this function before GPIS, thanks to a contract signed with the city authorities in 1988. “We put a lot of money [11 million euros – editor's note] into a company with no transparency, with cronyism and that bought social peace,” says Myriam El Khomri, the assistant mayor in Paris in charge of crime prevention and security since 2011. “The GPIS is a real benefit to us. To have a single point of reference rather that several private firms is simpler.”
“The GPIS was an excellent idea, innovative, but one which has reached its limitations,” says a former manager. “The aim was to be more about prevention than coercion. And not to replace police services, which is rather what the current direction is.” According to the internal safety code, the body's missions are clear: the GPIS can only intervene on the tenanted estates, while the police remain in charge on the public highways. But, as Stéphane Dambrine accepts, “by definition when you are in a city, the line between private areas and public property is really quite tenuous”.
As for the navy blue uniforms worn by GPIS agents, they seem directly inspired by those worn by the police, even though the law requires that “the uniform and the professional identity card … must not lead to any confusion with those of other public service agents, notably the police service”. A patrol leader admits: “From afar they look the same.” However, Didier Desous insists: “They have the acronym [GPIS] on the front, on the back and on the side. We respect the legislation to the letter in terms of the number of differences. These are uniforms for people who intervene in situations, I can't put them in suits or a tutu.”
The law also authorises GPIS agents, like any other citizen, to “apprehend” a person caught in the exercise of a crime and to hand them over to a police detective (for crimes that carry a sentence of a year's imprisonment or more). Thirty-eight people in 2011 were arrested in this way after joint operations with the police, and 39 by the GPIS alone.
The number of joint police-GPIS operations has increased since October 2011 and there are now two an evening. It represents a win-win situation, as a police superintendent interviewed by the daily Le Figaro explained: “As the GPIS guys aren't armed, we can intervene in a few seconds to support them when they come under attack. For their part, they have the access codes and entry cards to buildings, which is very valuable.”
The arrangement suits the police prefecture in Paris which has lost 400 posts in two years (out of 6,400 within the city limits). “In the 20th arrondissement when we carry out a joint operation the police have one or two vehicles available, while we have four brand-new ones,” grins a GPIS agent.
But for the agents who have to do the rounds 365 days a year, the impact of these joint operations is not so clear. “The day when we no longer go in with the police officers is very difficult because we are identified as the police,” one agent explains. Such operations “were useful for a time, but they have perhaps totally confused things and made things tense for the GPIS,” accepts Myriam El Khomri (1).
To add to the confusion a decree dated December 21st 2011 signed by the then interior minister Claude Guéant, and aimed at the GPIS, authorised surveillance guards on housing estates to be equipped with tonfa-style batons and tear gas, on condition that they are trained in their use. It is the first time in France that private agents have had access to these weapons, which have until now been reserved only for the state's forces of law and order and trained guards on the railway network and Paris' rail system.
According to management at GPIS these weapons are simply a means of defence and not of coercion, and they say their use is a response to demands from agents themselves.”We shouldn't delude ourselves, our agents will have dreamt of becoming police officers,” says a former boss at GPIS. However, among the 20 or so staff on strike that Mediapart met in June 2012 opinion was divided.
Some, like the patrol leader cited above, points to a growing privatisation of tasks that previously were reserved for the forces of law and order. “In July 2011 we were put in a line with shields faced with a group of troublemakers,” he recalls. “We were attacked with home-made mortars, fireworks and stones. I signed a contract as a surveillance guard, and now I have to keep law and order with shields?”
For the firm's management, however, such action is part of the job. “What you call maintaining law and order are operations where we have to protect the fire brigade while they are doing their job,” says Didier Desous. Stéphane Lambrine adds: “From time to time we are also called up by the police prefecture when there is a major traffic accident, to maintain security.” But critics wonder since when has it been the role of housing estate security guards to help secure the intervention of the rescue services on the public highway?
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1: City Hall in Paris, which has been seeking a formal right of oversight over the actions of the GPIS, has secured the setting up of a pilot committee from September 2012, of which it will be a member along with the police prefecture and the city's prosecution service.
'It's a bit like being in a military regime here'
These changes in operational direction led to a real power struggle among senior figures at the GPIS. In October 2010 the director Gilles Viguier, who was in disagreement with the wishes of the then president of the GPIS Pierre-René Lemas – who is today chief of staff at the Elysée – to refocus the structure on the lines of a normal security firm opted to resign. He was followed by four other senior staff, the director of administration and three staff from the planning and analysis unit.
These officials today bitterly attack the sole senior official from that time who is still in post, the operational director Didier Desous, a former soldier, whom they wanted to leave. Speaking on condition of anonymity, three former officials talk about the “management by stress” and even “dictatorship” at the organisation. “It was no longer possible to work in a healthy way,” says one. “You had to pledge an oath of allegiance. Changes were not made on merit but in line with loyalty to Monsieur Desous.”
The episode surrounding the departures caused such a poisonous atmosphere that in October 2010 an official from the CFTC-Sneps trade union warned management in a letter: “Many people have been manipulated, exploited and denigrated to satisfy the plans of certain individuals. You are playing with the mental health of your managers, line bosses and agents. Do you want another tragedy such as at France Telecom? (1)”
A former senior manager says regretfully: “GPIS has become a normal security firm, when its initial mission was to be at the service of the landlords. We had put emphasis on ethics and the length of training went from 70 to 140 hours, so that we could be more about prevention that coercion. We also carried out analysis and forward-planning, video surveillance and watched over the parking areas [which were very little used at the time – editor's note] because we considered that it was a service we owed to the tenants. But all that costs money and the president of GPIS preferred that we refocused on the operational and on basic functions.”
Contacted in June, the former president Pierre-René Lemas has not responded to Mediapart. As for his successor at the head of GPIS since January 2012, Stéphane Dambrine, he refers to the internal audit of 2011, of which Mediapart has only seen a summary. According to him, this reveals “a certain number of serious elements of dysfunction” that led Pierre-René Lemas to part company with all the senior managers with the exception of Didier Desous. However, for the former senior staff the audit was “slanted” and was just a pretext to get rid of them.
Inside GPIS people are reluctant to speak, and agents fear for their jobs faced with an operational director capable of saying in a meeting that he wants to “give what for” to a section leader or to “clear out” someone. “It's a bit like being in a military regime here,” says one union official. “It's quite easy to get rid of someone, you just need several reports with some false evidence.”
For having referred on a private security forum to “sackings under false pretences” a former agent, who had worked for four years as a subcontractor for GPIS, was surprised to be summonsed in May 2012 by the Brigade de répression de la délinquance contre la personne (BRDP) - the police unit that deals with matters such as criminal libel, violation of privacy and breach of professional secrecy - following a complaint of defamation made by the GPIS management. “I was only telling it as it was; the unfair sackings under false pretences, the pressure, and a unhealthy atmosphere,” says this former agent. “It works by cronyism. The management asks the inspectors to put us under pressure and to watch us, creating a climate of fear.”
A 23-year-old man who is furious at having lost his job at GPIS and who took part in the strike action in June, also talks about the unhealthy mood. “Here a lot of people are prepared to denounce a colleague to get a better position. I was accused of having flashed my lights at a detective's car that was driving at 10k kilometres an hour at 2am, but it was an unmarked car, I couldn’t have known. Once you become a little too good at answering back they are quite capable of getting rid of you just because you've stopped to order something to eat!”
A patrol leader cited above adds: “They dangle the carrot in front of you: you join as a simple agent, the aim of the game being to become a patrol leader. Then you keep your mouth shut so you can go on to become a head of a section. These heads of section are the eyes and ears of Didier Desous. If they are told 'You are going to get rid of someone' they will make a false statement,” he says. A patrol leader sacked in May 2012 for serious matters says that he was the victim of internal rivals and of “false claims of insubordination” made by his direct superiors.
These accusations are dismissed by Stéphane Dambrine. “In every organisation when you have a promotion you make one person happy and ten people unhappy,” he says. “Promotions are made on objective criteria and it is not Monsieur Desous who nominates them but the director Monsieur Bénas.” The management at GPIS highlights the fact that it has workplace conditions and pay levels that are significantly better than in private security firms as well as an annual turnover of staff of 6.5% which is “quite low for this kind of work” they say. “In the private security sector you're close to an annual turnover of staff of 10% a year or even a month,” says Desous.
As for the Paris city authorities, Myriam El Khomri says they have “never had a meeting of staff from GPIS making a complaint”. She adds: “I have made quite a few night visits with the GPIS agents and particularly with Monsieur Desous. I only hear good things about the GPIS management. They have sorted out a lot of things, and have good relations with the police superintendents. And the training of the agents is more sustained than in average security firms. Lots of other cities are looking to adopt this model.”
Among the six staff who have taken GPIS to an industrial tribunal, Pascal Michou, a former soldier sacked in January 2011 for a serious error, is without doubt the one most aggrieved with his former managers. Accused of having injured another agent in the knee and causing him to take ten days off work, and for having denigrated his superiors, he claims to have been the victim of a set-up, the other employee having been injured several days beforehand. “Since the departure of the old management there has been not the slightest sense of team spirit in the decision-making process,” he claims bitterly. “For them, the agents are worthless. They take one to break them and make them an example of, to frighten the others.”
But Stéphane Dambrine is not greatly worried by the six cases going before the tribunal, judging it “quite rare to meet staff who have been dismissed by an organisation who say many good things about their employer”.
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1: During 2008 and 2009, 35 employees of telecommunications giant France Telecom committed suicide. Unions claimed the suicides came as a result of stress at work caused by pressures linked to deliberate management techniques. In July 2012 the former chief executive of France Telecom Didier Lombard was placed under formal investigation over the suicides, with prosecutors saying the management techniques employed under him amounted to psychological harassment. Lombard has denied any responsibility, and says the number of suicides was no higher than the national average.
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English version: Michael Streeter