The city of Marseille has opened an administrative investigation targeting the urban supervision center, which centralizes video surveillance images. A case of police violence was allegedly knowingly covered up by the officers.
A former video operator at the urban supervision center (CSU) of the Marseille municipal police has decided to file a complaint against his superiors, reports BFMTV. For five years, Sébastien Florenti was in charge of analyzing the city’s video surveillance, and reporting any facts falling under the law. An essential role for agents in the field. Questioned by the continuous news channel, the former employee claims that his colleagues “turned a blind eye to violence committed by police officers in May 2023”.
The former operator allegedly saw on one of the cameras a man, visibly angry, being beaten by police officers. Suddenly, the surveillance camera changes angle of view and films another part of the street then returns to its initial position. In the meantime, the officers and the man moved out of sight. “We see them hitting an individual. He falls to the ground and a second police officer hits him again,” he says. “And there we have [un agent du] CSU, which instead of monitoring facts, takes control of the camera and will point it elsewhere,” assures the former operator.
“CSU agents bail”
The attitude of the Marseille CSU employees is denounced by their former colleague. “You have many who do not work […] They play cards, they do karaoke, they watch films or reality TV shows,” he explains. “This is police violence. And the CSU agents endorse it. I don’t want to support this mafia,” adds the ex-employee. He says he suffered harassment after the discovery of what could amount to a blunder. Which would have forced him to take time off in November 2023. Contacted by the television channel, the Marseille town hall responded “discovering” these “shocking” images, indicating that it would open an administrative investigation.
Céline Leflefian, director of the municipal police in Marseille, responded to Sébastien Florenti’s accusations. If she concedes “having received reports of actions at the CSU level a few months after (her) arrival”, the director questions the reasons which pushed the police officer to only speak a year later about the facts that He denounces. “I don’t understand why he kept this video for a year when he knows the rules of operation and conservation very well,” she laments at the microphone of BFMTV.
She even mentions a potential personal matter. “I think that we are more about the exploitation of a personal situation and a personal revenge, because this gentleman was not retained as a municipal police officer,” adds the director of the municipal police.