Should municipal police be disarmed? La France Insoumise's proposal provokes an outcry

"A local municipal police force does not need to be armed," Mathilde Panot declared on BFMTV on Sunday, recalling that La France Insoumise wanted the municipal police force to be reintegrated into the national police force "with a local police force."

"Community policing existed, it worked extremely well, and we regret that it was dismantled," she insisted, recalling that the presence of the armed national police remained the rule.

"Translation: with this left, you will no longer have the right to security. The left without the people," Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin (Renaissance) quickly reacted on X.

"LFI is choosing insecurity in our communities!" accused the president (LR) of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse.

On the left, there is no real support for this proposal either.

"I wouldn't support a rebellious mayor who announced that he was going to remove video surveillance or that he was going to remove the arming of police officers. That makes no sense. How can anyone even imagine it?" criticized Socialist Party First Secretary Olivier Faure.

Because Mathilde Panot also believed that surveillance cameras "have never proven their usefulness."

Interviewed on TF1 on Monday, movement coordinator Manuel Bompard did not directly address the question of the possible disarmament of municipal police officers in municipalities that would be subject to the rebellious flag in spring 2026, focusing instead on his "preference for human presence" over video surveillance.

"It is much more effective in combating insecurity problems," he insisted.

Because the issue of disarming the municipal police is not unanimous within the radical left movement, where around ten deputies are preparing to be top of the list next year.

"Everyone will take a position"

"We need assurances of seriousness. There is a demand from residents for good city management. I couldn't disarm my municipal council, for example," one of them recently told AFP.

"Delinquency won't be a taboo, far from it. I wouldn't suggest disarming the municipal police," added another.

"Local reality dictates that we should not disarm the Roubaix municipal police, given the increase in their missions and responsibilities," David Guiraud, a candidate in the northern city, told AFP, adding that "municipal police officers use their weapons much less frequently than national police officers."

This winter, the MP and rebellious executive Louis Boyard, a candidate in a municipal by-election in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges (Val-de-Marne), did not propose disarming the municipal police in the event of victory.

At the same time, the Insoumis published their "programmatic toolbox," a long series of proposals for the 2026 elections, on which they are counting to improve their local presence one year before the presidential election.

Among these ideas was the desire to "refuse the lethal weaponry of municipal police officers." For the Insoumis, this includes firearms and defense ball launchers (LBD).

"We want to remove lethal weapons, but that doesn't mean preventing municipal police officers from defending themselves," Hadrien Clouet, MP and co-leader of the LFI program, explained to AFP.

"Mathilde Panot has taken up one of the proposals from the toolbox. Afterwards, everyone will take a position; local deliberations will be necessary," he also adds.

The Insoumis are not the only party to be troubled by hesitations on this issue, while the left regularly faces accusations of laxity, coming from the right and the far right, on the question of security.

The Greens, who won several major cities in the last elections in 2020, are themselves divided.

In Grenoble, Mayor and Green Party spokesperson Éric Piolle refuses to arm his municipal police force. Conversely, in Bordeaux, Mayor Pierre Hurmic announced last year that a quarter of his 200 officers would now be armed with firearms.