NUÑEZ. The new prefect of police of Paris is therefore Laurent Nuñez. What missions were entrusted to him? Who is he ? Here is his portrait.
He is “the man for the job” according to Gérald Darmanin. Laurent Nuñez, 58, became the new prefect of police for Paris on Thursday July 21, 2022, succeeding Didier Lallement, who remained in office for three years. The one who is now in charge of security in Paris, and in the inner suburbs (Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne), but who also has authority over the Paris fire brigade s he was entrusted with a very clear and particularly charged roadmap by Gérald Darmanin. The Minister of the Interior, hierarchical superior of the new tenant of the Ile de la Cité, has set the course: less delinquency in the capital, end of the crack crisis and Olympic Games 2024 objective, on the security angle.
This specialist in terrorism issues now sits in one of the highest positions in the Republic, responsible for maintaining public order in the capital and its surroundings with a team of more than 40,000 agents. Already passed through such functions in the Bouches-du-Rhône and ex-number 2 of the Paris police headquarters, Laurent Nuñez begins a mandate with multiple challenges.
Inducted by Gérald Darmanin, Laurent Nuñez was given numerous tasks by the Minister of the Interior, who declined them during his speech on Thursday 21 July. The “first cop in France” summoned the new boss of the “PP” to settle the crack crisis in Paris in a year, asking him, as a first step, to “propose, for the start of the school year, solutions to fight definitively against this scourge”, as he explained in an interview given to the Parisian. A thorny subject, source of political battles between the police headquarters and the town hall of Paris. But both will have to get back around a table to move forward on the subject.
More generally, Laurent Nuñez will have to “fight against all forms of delinquency, which hurt so many Parisians, so many Ile-de-France residents, so many French people, so many tourists” according to the line set by Gérald Darmanin. “Bad citizens, delinquents, must no longer know any respite,” he said, pointing in particular to delinquency in transport, attacks against women and against “the most vulnerable among us.” To this end, 1,000 new police stations will be created in Paris over the next five years, including 500 in the next two years, accompanied by the installation of 500 new cameras. In addition, the police headquarters will have a law enforcement training center which will be created in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges (Val-de-Marne).
In the line of sight, the Rugby World Cup in 2023, but, above all, the Olympic Games in 2024. While the organization of the final of the football champions league at the Stade de France has turned into chaos because of the police headquarters according to a senatorial report on this nightmarish evening, Laurent Nuñez is commissioned by Gérald Darmanin to “organize these events well.” “The forthcoming organization of the Rugby World Cup (2023) and the Olympic and Paralympic Games are major challenges and I ask you today to ensure the general mobilization of all the resources of the police headquarters”, urged the Minister of the Interior, without however evoking the degraded image that sticks to the skin of the police headquarters (use of force, tear gas, LBD shots), even summoning his subordinate “to apply the new law enforcement scheme” which has been so debated.
Does the installation of Laurent Nuñez signify the beginning of a new method at the Paris police headquarters? For Rémi Feraud, PS senator from Paris and boss of the municipal councilors of the majority of the capital, “Laurent Nuñez is a great civil servant, who knows the house. He will be able to return to a republican conception of the function”, as he has entrusted to Public Senate. A man “more rounded, more human, easier in the balance of power”, according to the comment of a police officer who collaborated with, reported by European 1. Character traits confirmed by a ministerial source at Releasewhich speaks of a “good technician, hardworking, intellectual, and he already has a fine knowledge of the house.”
However, if Philippe Domknati, Senator LR, speaks of a “friendly, pleasant man who listens to people” with Public Senate, he notes, however, the constant volatility of a future prefect of police “who changes position every two years. Under these conditions, we have never been able to control his action, nor verify his feedback.” In 2018, in a portrait by Releasea former “PP” also had some reservations about him: “Laurent Nuñez is certainly pleasant and intellectual, but he is also docile and deferential towards his supervisory authority. He has too much sense of the State to dare to shit in the glue. However, in this ruthless environment, you have to know how to say shit to your minister.
Laurent Nuñez prefect of police of Paris
Ten years later, Laurent Nuñez has therefore again settled in an office of the Paris police headquarters. But this time, it is no longer in that of the chief of staff but in that of the prefect of the capital. The 50-year-old was indeed appointed on Wednesday July 20, 2022 in place of Didier Lallement. The decision was officially endorsed by the Council of Ministers. It is indeed by a decree signed by the President of the Republic, on the proposal of the Prime Minister, that such an appointment is recorded.
Laurent Nuñez has taken over the reins of policing, which has been particularly decried in the capital over the past three years, where the use of force has not been made sparingly, tear gas and LBD fire having been legion during demonstrations, in particular during those of the Yellow Vests and various raids in the street. A non-exhaustive list to which are added evacuations of migrant camps often muscular, as well as small sentences which had not failed to scratch the image of the “PP”.
Above all, Laurent Nuñez dons the costume of prefect of police two years before a particularly important deadline for Paris and France: that of the 2024 Olympic Games. A hell of a logistical challenge and of which the security framework will be a very large piece. All the more so after the fiasco of the organization of the Champions League final at the Stade de France. Among the other hot issues, the social protest which should be heard in the street at the start of the school year against the pension reform or the management of migrants and cracked people in Paris.
Biography of Laurent Nuñez
Born in 1964, Laurent Nuñez is a servant of the State, a senior civil servant throughout his career. A graduate in the management of local authorities, he worked in the economic department of the General Council of Cher at the age of 23, before becoming a tax inspector. It was only ten years later that he entered the ENA (promotion 97-99), finding himself alongside Alexandre Bompard, the CEO of Carrefour, but also Chantal Jouanno, ex-minister of Nicolas Sarkzoy, or even Claude Raynal, a political figure from Haute-Garonne.
Appointed Secretary General of the Haute-Saône prefecture, Laurent Nuñez remained in office until 2005 when he joined the Ministry of the Interior, responsible for managing the prefectural body as head of office. A function that he left three years later to become chief of staff of Nacer Meddah, prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis. When the representative of the State in 93 packs up, Laurent Nuñez finds himself propelled to Bayonne, as sub-prefect. Again, the mission is brief: in 2012, he left for Paris, heading to the police headquarters, appointed director of cabinet of Bernard Boucault. In 2015, he crossed France again and rose to prominence by becoming the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône.
Emmanuel Macron recalls him to the capital after his victory in the presidential election and places him at the head of the DGSI. He only remained in office for a year, becoming in the fall of 2018 Secretary of State to the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, before taking charge of the national coordination of intelligence and the fight against terrorism after the departure of the former tenant from Place Beauvau. Once again, after two years, he therefore changed positions to become the new prefect of police in Paris.