He counterattacked by announcing to seize justice on “massive fraud with counterfeit notes”. The prefect of police of Paris, Didier Lallement, is at the center of criticism, Monday, May 30, after the incidents Saturday evening near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) on the sidelines of the final of the League of champions.
But the Minister of the Interior assured him of unfailing support. “Without the decisions taken by the police and the prefect, there would have been deaths”said Gérald Darmanin, after an interministerial meeting about the dysfunctions around the security of the sporting event.
This is not the first time that Didier Lallement’s policing methods, considered too harsh, are frowned upon. Franceinfo looks back on the precedents that have earned it come under fire from critics since its appointment, in March 2019, at the head of the institution responsible for the security of Paris and its small crown.
1From 2019, he is criticized for his management of the demonstrations of “yellow vests”
Didier Lallement takes over as head of the Paris police headquarters on March 21, 2019. He is then 62 years old and succeeds Michel Delpuech, dismissed because he was deemed too lax in the face of the ransacking of the Arc de Triomphe on December 1, 2018 in Paris , during the third weekend of demonstration of the “yellow vests”. This native of Lyon has the image of a “man with a fist” as prefect of New Aquitaine and the reputation of a senior civil servant in the “strong character”remember France 3 Normandywhere he served from 2010 to 2012, before being appointed in 2017 in Bordeaux.
However, less than a year after his arrival at the head of the Paris police headquarters, this “State within the State”, internal documents call into question his management of the maintenance of order during the protest movement. He is “clearly stated that we must ‘impact’ the groups”, relate Gendarmerie officials, according to a note from September 2019. The use of the “trap” technique is pointed out in these documents, revealed by Mediapart in 2020. Senior officials judge the practices of Didier Lallement “contrary to the legislation as well as to the regulations in force”writes the investigative site.
And then there is this scene, in November 2019, on the Place d’Italie, in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Didier Lallement strolls there after the scuffles which marred the demonstration organized for the first anniversary of the “yellow vests”. In front of the cameras of BFMTV, the prefect of police is apostrophized by a woman who prides herself on belonging to the movement. “We are not on the same side, ma’am!” he lets go. Some accuse him of departing from the neutrality undue to his function, even of leaving his duty of reserve. He will concede later “a clumsiness”.
2In the spring of 2020, he blames the patients of Covid-19 in intensive care
The prefect with a sharp face and a slender silhouette is talking about him again a few months later, while France is confined in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic. “Those who are hospitalized today, found in intensive care, are those who at the start of confinement did not respect it. There is a very simple correlation”declared Didier Lallement, on April 3, 2020, during a police operation at the Porte d’Orléans in Paris, to prevent spring break departures. This “very simple correlation” is far from obvious, according to several doctors and scientists. And these remarks cause an outcry.
The mea culpa is not long in coming: a few hours later, the Paris police headquarters publishes a press release in which its leader it “to regret” his comments. “His intention was not to establish a direct link between non-compliance with health instructions and the presence of patients in intensive care.. It was a question of recalling the need for a strict application of confinement during this period, for the protection of everyone’s health., details the text. To be sure that the message got through, Didier Lallement decided to speak out loud at a press conference.
“I was able to give the feeling that I was not aware that many of our fellow citizens are still exposed to the disease due to the professional commitment“he laments, facing the camera, in a laconic tone. “What matters in the difficult situation we are going through is national unity”finally assures the prefect of police of Paris, for the sake of appeasement.
3In January 2021, he is targeted in an investigation for “false testimony”
The year 2021 does not start under the best auspices for Didier Lallement. In his greeting card,he prefect of police of Paris inscribes a quote from the Russian communist Leon Trotsky, speaking of “the necessary order”. The card is sent to many elected officials in Ile-de-France. Some are indignant at this “curious reference for a prefect of police”.
Barely fifteen days after this controversy, it is in the crosshairs of justice that Didier Lallement finds himself, within the framework of an investigation for “false testimony”, opened after reports from the deputy Ugo Bernalicis. The elected official of La France insoumise had seized the public prosecutor of Paris to denounce a series of declarations “lies” made under oath, on the part of the prefect of police and four high magistrates.
Chairman of the commission of inquiry into the independence of justice, Ugo Bernalicis believes that Didier Lallement did not tell the parliamentarians the whole truth when he declared, during a hearing, that he had no “found the organizers” unauthorized police protests in June 2020. Finally, three months after its opening, the public prosecutor’s office in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) dismissed the investigation for “false testimony”, in the“absence d’infraction”. The public prosecutor assures that “neither the material element nor the intentional element of this offense are characterized”.
4Between 2021 and 2022, he battles with the town hall of Paris on the “hill of crack”
The towel burns between Didier Lallement and Anne Hidalgo. Since his appointment, the head of the police force has not deviated from his position: he wants to move crack consumers out of the northeast of Paris. This is their historic assembly area, nicknamed “Crack Hill”. The intransigent Didier Lallement has therefore set a policy of dispersion. However, on the side of the town hall of Paris, we are rather favorable to the creation of new consumption rooms, to prevent crack smokers from taking drugs in the middle of the street. And everyone is sticking to their positions.
But time is running out: on the ground, local residents are overwhelmed. Thus, in May 2021, firework mortars fired at a group of crack smokers in the street. In reaction, Anne Hidalgo closes the public gardens of the district, without having found a new place to welcome them. Then in September 2021, she requested police intervention on Twitter. Furious, Didier Lallement responds to her in a press release and makes her publicly responsible for the situation.
Situation around the Jardin d’Éole. Check out the press release from the prefect of police ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/mpRhqiYE51
— Prefecture of Police (@prefpolice) September 21, 2021
A few days later, the prefect of police dispensed with the agreement of the town hall to transfer these drug addicts to Porte de La Villette, in a square on the edge of Seine-Saint-Denis, to avoid any new overflow in the gardens of ‘Aeolus. The pass of arms continues and at the start of 2022, Didier Lallement proposes a third move, this time to the 12th arrondissement of Paris, to a parcel of the SNCF, after “installation of a secure fence”. Which he must give up three days later, in the face of virulent opposition from elected officials on both the left and the right. Since then, the situation seems blocked.
Especially since between the socialist mayor and the prefect of police, relations are still stormy: in a letter addressed to Anne Hidalgo, revealed on May 13 by The Parisian, Didier Lallement torpedoes the disputed redevelopment project between the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower. Without mincing words and with a dry tone.
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