The trend dates back a dozen years, and we owe it to François Hollande. When the first Ayrault government was appointed, the titles of some ministries created a surprise. Arnaud Montebourg was in charge of Productive Recovery, George Pau-Langevin of Educational Success. Beyond the description of missions, it was a question of formulating a promise.
In this respect, the Barnier government is doing very well. It includes a Minister for Simplification, a commitment that has become classic but never carried out, or, more original, for Partnership with the territories – long live the Gironde Republic -, for Food Sovereignty, a meeting of Jean-Pierre Chevènement and Jean-Pierre Coffe, and for Academic Success, reminiscent of the George Pau-Langevin era.
Even more unexpected, Nicolas Daragon was appointed Minister Delegate for Daily Security. What’s that? The installation of a complementary couple at Beauvau brings back memories. In 1986, Charles Pasqua became Minister of the Interior. Help, the right of dirty tricks is back!, cries the left. Jacques Chirac adds a seasoned teammate to him: Robert Pandraud, an ENA graduate, former director of the national police and former chief of staff of the Corrézien, is appointed Minister Delegate for Security. One stone, three birds with one stone, Matignon then said to itself: a close friend to accompany the very opaque Pasqua, a technician to reassure the skeptics, and an assistant for security to mark the government’s priority.
Closer to home, the government of Edouard Philippe is reproducing the formula, with the Christophe Castaner-Laurent Nunez team, the latter, chief director of the DGSI, internal intelligence, is appointed Secretary of State for the Interior. A security professional, that’s reassuring.
“Unbridled drug trafficking”
Nicolas Daragon, for his part, is neither a police officer nor a prefect. He is the mayor of Valence, in the Drôme, a city plagued by significant drug trafficking. “Valence, a showcase for medium-sized cities that are victims of unbridled drug trafficking,” wrote the report of the Senate inquiry committee on the impact of drug trafficking in France in May 2024. “The families of drug traffickers are already well established and identified, phenomena of communitarianism are developing and some neighborhoods are deteriorating. The use of firearms creates an effect of terror on the population,” describes Senator Etienne Blanc, in charge of the report. The phenomenon reflects one of Emmanuel Macron’s priorities: to combat the deterioration of the living environment in certain neighborhoods, perceived as future breeding grounds for a National Rally vote.
This is also a legacy of Gérald Darmanin, who is very much in tune with the President of the Republic on the subject. When The Parisian asked him, in September 2020, what his first priority would be at Beauvau, he replied: “Undeniably the fight against drugs. This must be the alpha and omega of all our interventions”. He already noted “a link with the fight against everyday insecurity”. And added: “When we see that today a 14-year-old kid can earn more than his father by acting like a “chouf” (the watch)we should not be surprised that there is a crisis of authority in our country”. It is already in this state of mind that the organization of the national police was reformed in 2022-2023, so that the investigators of the legendary judicial police spend more time on cases related to dealing or crime on the public highway. Nicolas Daragon could almost have been appointed Minister for the Fight against Dealers.
Past examples show that the voluntarism of the title does not necessarily bring about a big bang in public action. The existence of a Ministry of “Productive Recovery” did not in any way stem the loss of jobs in the manufacturing industry between 2012 and 2014. And the presence of a Ministry of “Educational Success” did not have the magical effect of making France progress in the Pisa rankings. To improve the “daily security” of the French, a clear strategy and resources will be needed. This is often where the problem lies, in a country where the public debt has already reached a dizzying 3.1 billion euros.
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