Eight years later, Raymond Soligo remembers perfectly the phone call received from his department head, in the middle of the day. This January 7, 2015, this security officer is still on paternity leave: his son has just been born, and the protection service (SDLP) of the national police, for which he has worked since the mid-1990s, is not supposed to need his presence on the ground. At the end of the line, his boss tells him some terrible news. His colleague Franck Brinsolaro, in charge of ensuring the protection of the cartoonist Charb, has just been assassinated in the terrorist attack perpetrated against Charlie Hebdo. Faced with the assault rifles of the two shooters, the specialist officer was unable to return fire. He died alongside eleven other people, including eight members of the editorial staff of the satirical newspaper. This 40-year-old leaves behind two children, and “shocked” colleagues.
“It was violent. We know very well that this risk exists, but we always tell ourselves that it only happens to others. There, one of us fell”, summarizes Raymond Soligo, current deputy regional secretary of the FSPN union for SGP Police Unit. That day, the shock was so intense that Dominique* still has trouble putting it into words. “It could have been any of us. You have to understand that for Franck, it was a normal day. The surveillance he was carrying out on January 7 is our daily life”, breathes this officer, member of the SDLP for many years. On condition of anonymity, he recounts the “fuzzy” days that followed the attack, during which he avoids connecting to social networks, invaded by all kinds of details, images, comments… And threats. “I protected myself psychologically as best I could. But I quickly understood that there would be a before and an after Charlie. A before and after Franck”.
Within this elite service of the National Police, made up of 1,450 officials responsible in particular for the close protection of the leaders of the French Republic, its foreign guests or civilian personalities specifically threatened, the missions are accelerating. According to Raymond Soligo, “between 15 and 18 personalities” must immediately be protected after the attack, mobilizing “60 to 70 personnel”, mainly on the ground. “We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the start of a dark, very difficult period.”
“Bubbles of Hate”
Commissioner Pierre Freyssengeas, spokesman for the SDLP, describes 2015 as a “pivotal” year, which would have given “a different tone” to the service’s missions. to the attacks of Charlie Hebdo many terrorist attacks followed, including that perpetrated by Amedy Coulibaly in Montrouge and in the Hyper Cacher store at Porte de Vincennes, those of November 2015 in Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis, or July 14, 2016 in Nice. After these attacks and in the months that followed, “we developed security techniques”, he explains, while the service had to “adapt to the intensity of the threat, closely linked to the context international, societal, and to the high media exposure of certain people”. For security reasons, it is impossible to know the exact number of personalities currently protected by the approximately 600 officers of the SDLP’s sub-directorate for the protection of persons (SDPP). Pierre Freyssengeas only mentions “120 to 150 missions carried out daily by the service”, everywhere in France – a figure which would have “increased slightly” since the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
“Traditionally, we protected institutions and the function they embody a great deal. This is still the case, but since then our missions have been expanded around this whole sphere of civil, religious and intellectual society, which is the new threats,” the official said. Journalists, but also many judges, lawyers or professors… whom the SDLP officers “never thought they would have to protect one day”, underlines Raymond Soligo. Especially since in parallel, the power of social networks weighs more and more on their shoulders. An analysis broadcast live on a continuous news channel, the sharing of a simple tweet or a short speech on Instagram can now lead to any citizen being targeted. In the space of a few hours, an average Frenchman can thus become the random victim of thousands of calls for hatred, rape, or murder.
Some threats are considered extremely serious by the authorities. It is the counter-terrorism coordination unit (Uclat), attached to the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), that is responsible for setting the level of this threat, on a scale of 1 to 4. The SDLP then adapts its security system, which can fluctuate from day to day. “You always have to be on the lookout. There are sorts of hate bubbles that are created very quickly on social networks, it’s quite impressive”, summarizes Abdelhalim Benzadi, major within the SDLP and delegate of the Alliance union. For the past ten years, he can only observe the increase in the number of personalities to be protected, and the speed with which certain profiles are now targeted. “Look at the Mila affair… It’s the quintessence of it all,” he illustrates, taking as an example this young teenager who has been threatened with death since 2020 for having criticized Islam in a video posted on Instagram.
“You Become the Game”
On the ground, the vigilance of the 1450 officials of the SDLP, and a fortiori of the 600 security officers of the sub-directorate for the protection of persons (SDPP), is stronger than ever. At a time when any Internet user can know, in a few clicks, the time and place where public figures will speak, Sylvie, security officer at the Ministry of the Interior, admits that “the profession has evolved” since his arrival at the SDLP 20 years ago. “We must not underestimate the impact of a tweet, of a single piece of information that could seem innocuous. You have to have eyes everywhere: we work with additional tension”, explains this policewoman, who indicates having protected a hundreds of French or foreign personalities since the beginning of his career. After a first life as a police officer in the police station, she describes a job “that comes out of the boxes”, in which you must never let your guard down. “When you are a policeman, you hunt. Evidence, delinquents, criminals. When you protect a personality, you become the game. You have to get used to it”.
After the attack of Charlie Hebdo, Sylvie was called, like the majority of her colleagues, to protect new personalities, sometimes directly threatened with death. No matter the pressure, the worry of her loved ones or the extended hours… She remembers “not having hesitated for a second”: “Death, I don’t think about it too much. Deep down, you have to love the risk to do this job. In twenty years, she has had time to understand that the SDLP is a service in which routine does not exist.
Every other week, the officer works without fixed schedules, following the more or less calm rhythm of “his personalities”, before benefiting from a week of rest. “It’s sometimes intense. If their days last 18 hours, yours too”, summarizes Sylvie, evoking the short nights, the missions of several days abroad, or even the appointments with the friends “who cannot never be planned in advance” – a subject of tension for the unions, which estimate between 3 and 4 million the “stock” of overtime worked by the agents of the service. Regardless, this intensity appeals to the official. Over time, she has also learned to put the right distance between her personal life and those she protects. “We have to stay in our place, we are not here to be intrusive. And above all, we leave aside everything that is personal”.
“Sometimes all it takes is a look”
“You quickly sense whether the person is open to your protection or not. Often, on a relational level, it makes or breaks”, confirms Raymond Soligo. The man recalls that some personalities did not expect to be protected one day, and are not used to having to report to any protection service. “Some people tell you: ‘Do your job, but I don’t want to see you.’ ‘at noon,’ he laments.
But most often, a “privileged” relationship is woven between the protege and the protector. “You end up understanding them better than anyone. Sometimes all it takes is a look,” says Dominique. When, for example, the personality he is monitoring is embarrassed or attacked a little too violently, a system of codes allows the agent to quickly get him out of an embarrassing situation. “Our job is also to protect their image”. After January 7, 2015, Dominique had the opportunity to follow some survivors of the attack in Charlie Hebdo, with which he describes “a special bond”. “You accompany them while they try to resume their lives more or less normally, you are like a crutch,” he recalls. During this period, the agent confides that he felt “more in his place than ever”.
*Name has been changed.