The small town of Isigny-sur-Mer, in Calvados, looks like a postcard, with its 18th century castle and its small marina lined with flowers. Located not far from the D-Day beaches, about thirty kilometers from Saint-Lô, the city does not have serious security problems, according to the admission of its mayor, Éric Barbanchon (without label). The town of 3,600 inhabitants has nevertheless equipped itself with a dozen security cameras, following a “problem of incivility in the town”: repeated vandalism of the leisure center and a wave of burglaries.
“It seemed to us to be a relevant solution to our problem,” confides Éric Barbanchon. Especially since the installation of cameras was requested by residents. Video surveillance was put in place in the city in 2016. Since then, “we have had no more problems” assures the city councilor. The cameras even allowed the gendarmerie to elucidate some minor cases.
Video surveillance better accepted by the population
Formerly confined to large cities and peri-urban areas, video surveillance is now reaching small rural communities, even the quietest. Far from frightening the population, cameras are even requested. A survey carried out by OpinionWay in September 2024 clearly underlines this trend: 87% of French people say they are in favor of the presence of cameras in public spaces, a figure constant across age, social class and political orientation.
If, in the past, this equipment was mainly deployed in the south-east of France, Vivien Baczkiewicz, associate director of the video protection company CASD, says she sees an increase in requests in all territories, with a knock-on effect between neighboring towns: “As we have more perspective on what has been done elsewhere, this encourages town halls to equip themselves.” The mayor of Isigny-sur-Mer himself observed this domino effect: the neighboring town, Molay-Littry, recently inaugurated a video surveillance system similar to his own.
This is also seen in the figures: the number of cameras installed on public roads increased from 60,000 in 2013 to 90,000 in 2023, according to a report of deputies Philippe Gosselin and Philippe Latombe — an increase of 50% in 10 years. While in 2015 the industry weighed 1.2 billion euros in France, it now represents 2.2 billion, and should achieve growth of 8% in 2024, underlines a study Safelythe sector’s specialist magazine.
The rise of surveillance
State aid granted to cities wishing to equip themselves is certainly not unrelated. Among the 87.4 million euros allocated to the Interministerial Fund for the Prevention of Delinquency (FIPD), 25 million are allocated to the Directorate of Security and Arms Companies and Partnerships (DEPSA), specifically responsible for the deployment of security and weapons systems. video surveillance on public roads. A variety of players hope to take advantage of the boom in this market. Pierre Guitton, founder of the research office specializing in video surveillance Act’Iv, has been traveling throughout Île-de-France since 2017 to advise cities. “I don’t sell cameras or software, I listen to their needs and together we see what the best solutions to their problems are,” he explains. The majority of its clients, communities of around 30,000 inhabitants in peri-urban areas, have problems with delinquency, particularly traffic. Pierre Guitton systematically advises installing cameras at the entrance and exit of the city, and in the centers.
But cameras are no longer praised by the industry other than for their security aspect. “Cities are using them more and more for additional functions, such as helping with decision-making,” says Pierre Guitton. One of the municipalities he advises recently organized a Christmas market, and used the statistics collected by the cameras to obtain attendance figures, which were used to obtain funding. “Many new uses have appeared, in particular to improve traffic flow in cities, fight against illegal dumping, and even monitor floods,” lists Vivien Baczkiewicz.
These new features are possible thanks to advances in software and artificial intelligence. Whereas in the past cameras were content to film, it is now technically possible to send alerts or recover data from videos. This AI-enhanced video surveillance was implemented during the Paris Olympic Games, as part of an experiment which runs until March 2025. An independent evaluation committee must report in December on the use algorithmic video surveillance. And the government, before its overthrow, was quite favorable to perpetuating the experience.
Despite the motion of censure, “I can’t imagine for a second that we’ll go back,” reassures Dominique Legrand, the president of AN2V. The national video protection association, which brings together industry players, even hopes to broaden the scope of surveillance cameras. It claims to have identified 156 possible use cases, from reading Crit’Air stickers on cars to detecting oil slicks on a river.
An effective solution?
Two burning questions remain. Firstly, that of respect for private life. Can it be guaranteed in a city where cameras are installed? Impossible, according to La Quadrature du Net, an association for the defense of fundamental freedoms in the digital environment. In several publicationsthe association warns of the risk that the algorithmic surveillance scans “our freedom to come and go, to assemble, to express our political opinions or to have the privacy of our choice”. La Quadrature especially fears that in the long term, facial recognition will be authorized, which would, according to it, establish a society of control.
Another unknown: the very effectiveness of this technology. “In one of the cities with which I worked, young people were doing urban rodeos in front of the town hall, or taking nitrous oxide. Since we installed the cameras, there are no more problems. The young people are were caught once or twice, and they ended up going further away,” argues Pierre Guitton. But assessments of the impact of video surveillance – which often predate the integration of AI – have sometimes contradictory conclusions. A 2009 report from the Ministry of the Interior indicated that delinquency had fallen on average more sharply in municipalities equipped with cameras than in those without them. But the English Police Training Institute which has compiled various evaluations on heterogeneous perimeters reminds that the effectiveness of video surveillance varies depending on the context. When installed in parking lots, security cameras could reduce crime by 37%, according to some estimates. But others show that residential areas with CCTV only benefit from a 12% reduction in crime. The results are unclear in public transport and in city centers: seven evaluations suggest a reduction in crime in equipped city centers, while three others report an increase. And the effectiveness of the devices varies from one country to another: while they are considered rather efficient in the United Kingdom, in South Korea, the experiment proved disappointing. How can we then assess whether the game is worth the effort – or rather the expense?
The main risk is that the installation of cameras will only move the problems to other, less well-equipped, more distant neighborhoods. In a preliminary analysis from the University of Berkeley in 2008: researchers observed that homicides decreased within a radius of around thirty meters around the cameras, but increased beyond that. The experiment carried out during the Olympic Games itself risks being difficult to interpret. Nearly 45,000 police officers and gendarmes and 10,000 soldiers patrolled Paris for weeks, and the test sites were placed under a security perimeter. In such a protected setting, it is difficult to know whether the cameras really played an important role.
Will there nevertheless be an “OJ effect” for the sector? For the moment, professionals in the sector have not noted a clear increase. “Cities must go through public procurement, it is not possible to install cameras overnight,” specifies Vivien Baczkiewicz. More than the Olympics, it is another deadline which interests the video surveillance industry: the municipal elections of March 2026. “It is always an impactful moment concerning the requests for cameras”, specifies Vivien Baczkiewicz. “Some mayors install them just before the election, others just after. In both cases it is mainly a question of respecting campaign promises.”