"It's a tool for protection and deterrence": these left-wing mayors who chose to arm their municipal police

With the municipal elections just a year away, La France Insoumise's position of disarming these agents has been criticized, including by the left. The Green mayor of Bordeaux is now preparing to do the opposite.

The strong reactions did not scald her. "The municipal police in our country do not have to possess firearms. I say it and I maintain it," Mathilde Panot insists in a video published Tuesday, July 8 on X. The leader of the deputies of La France insoumise had sparked a controversy by stating Sunday, on BFMTV, that the candidates of her party in the municipal elections, if they were elected, would take away their weapons from the municipal police officers who have them . A year before the election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party also published on its website a program, presented as a "toolbox" , which advocates "refusing the lethal arming of municipal police officers" in all municipalities, whether firearms or defense ball launchers (LBD). Obviously criticized by the right and the far right, this position also causes turbulence with LFI's partners within the New Popular Front, while many left-wing or ecologist mayors have chosen to arm their municipal police.

Since a 1986 law, each town hall can decide to authorize municipal police officers to carry a lethal weapon. This decision must be voted on at a municipal council meeting. This is what environmentalist Pierre Hurmic, elected mayor of Bordeaux in 2020, did at the end of 2024. This measure will be effective "next week" , six months after a municipal council meeting that marked a turning point. "I was not philosophically in favor of arming municipal police officers, it is not an idea that would have come to me at the beginning of my term" , he recounts to franceinfo.

In April 2024, his deputy for security assured Le Figaro that "the lethal arming of our municipal police would be a strategic error and a headlong rush." ​​A few months later, the position of the Bordeaux majority has evolved. "I am concerned about being a mayor who listens to his agents, to the field, and I have a sense of responsibility and pragmatism. I am aware of the worsening of a certain type of delinquency, and I cannot leave the municipal police officers unarmed, especially since very often, they are the ones who intervene first, day and night," explains Pierre Hurmic. He also says he noted the difficulties in recruiting municipal police officers at the start of his mandate, when the agents were demanding to be armed.

"It is a tool for protection and deterrence," adds Pierre Hurmic, who wanted to find "a mixed solution, like in Bordeaux ." A new "support and security" brigade has therefore been created, whose officers will be armed, while the municipal police officers whose role is to be "local," three-quarters of the force, will not be. "I am in tune with my convictions," summarizes Pierre Hurmic today, who assures that the city will have as many mediators, in charge of prevention, as armed municipal police officers.

The Gironde city has therefore been added to the list of municipalities which have a municipal police force equipped with lethal weapons. According to a FranceInfo tally, 14 of France's 20 most populous cities have equipped their officers with firearms. A fifteenth, Angers, is expected to join them after a city council vote at the end of June. Smaller municipalities, such as Bruges (Gironde), with a population of 20,000, have also made this choice.

According to the Observatory of Local Finance and Public Management , approximately 80% of municipal police forces are equipped with weapons, lethal or not (telescopic batons, tear gas, electric pulse pistols, etc.). Questioned by franceinfo, the Ministry of the Interior specifies that in the 3,812 municipalities where municipal police officers are deployed, 58% of them are equipped with a firearm. An upward trend: this figure was only 37% in 2014, according to the Court of Auditors .

Before making his decision, the Bordeaux mayor consulted other left-wing elected officials, including Mathieu Hanotin. This socialist had beaten the outgoing communist mayor of Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) in 2020, after campaigning on the promise of arming municipal police officers. He defends a decision based on "the reality on the ground" . "When they participate in public security, can municipal police officers find themselves facing armed people? In Saint-Denis, yes, there are recurring fights with bladed or firearms. Our officers must be able to protect themselves and our fellow citizens, they need the means to react in a proportionate manner," he assures franceinfo.

While they stand by their decision, these left-wing mayors are aware that the debate still exists within their political family. "There are mayors who remain fundamentally hostile to arming the municipal police, others say that it will be the debate in the next municipal elections," notes Pierre Hurmic, who deplores LFI's "completely out of touch" position.

In Grenoble, the Green mayor Eric Piolle continues to oppose it. "I believe that arming our municipal police officers with firearms exposes them to missions that are not theirs, and to additional risks," he explained in 2024 on BFMTV , four years after a clash over security with the then Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. The Socialist councilors of Nantes, Rennes and Lille also refuse. "I have no totem, no taboo, no dogma to change their mission and therefore their equipment ," assured Nathalie Appéré, mayor of Rennes, in May, interviewed by Ouest-France . On the other hand, it is lying to people to suggest that arming the municipal police would be enough to eliminate the problem." However, "the Socialist Party has largely changed its mind on this issue," believes the mayor of Saint-Denis, Mathieu Hanotin, "even if that does not mean that we are advocating for arming all municipal police officers."

Another case in point: in Lyon, the ecologists, by winning the election in 2020, inherited a municipal police force that has been armed since 2015. "There is no question of disarming municipal police officers, it has in fact been voted on several times in the municipal council," the municipal executive, which also includes elected officials from the radical left, told franceinfo. "At the local level, LFI has not conveyed this message," continues the majority, which is also preparing to increase the number of surveillance cameras by 10% and to recruit municipal police officers, "to have blue in the streets." Of the nearly 300 Lyon officers, 200 are armed. A choice that goes a little further than the programmatic corpus of Europe Ecology-The Greens for the 2020 municipal elections, which stated that "there is no question of disarming municipal police forces overnight" , but that arming is not "a lasting solution to ensure the safety of residents" .

With less than a year to go before the municipal elections, the rebels' stated desire to disarm the municipal police could jeopardize potential local alliances, but also present LFI with contradictions between the line taken in Paris and local issues. MP David Guiraud, who is running for mayor of Roubaix (Nord), told AFP that he did not intend to disarm the municipal police if elected.