Rarely has a senior civil servant achieved such notoriety. With his brutal style – which he says he knowingly used for his communication – Didier Lallement embodied order and police intransigence in Paris for more than three years. “We are not on the same side ma’am”, he went so far as to strike a woman claiming to be yellow vests, words that they assume today. Three months after leaving the police headquarters, he wanted to explain his action, his choices, his words. In The Necessary Order (Robert Laffont), work co-written with Jean-Jérôme Bertolus, head of the political service of France Info, to be published on October 20, the prefect does not rule out any angry question. He describes an increasingly violent French society, in which each political decision can serve as a “detonator” towards ever more excesses. “Reflection is limited to a slogan: it has to blow up!”, he laughs in the preamble.
L’Express publishes exclusively and in two parts the good sheets of this shocking book. In the first part, Didier Lallement discusses the perils of Macron’s second five-year term, his arrival at the prefecture, the demonstrations of yellow vests, the fire at Notre-Dame and the disaster of the Champions League final. at the Stade de France. In the second part, to be discovered on our site this Monday, October 17, the prefect evokes the politicians he has worked with or seen evolve: Emmanuel Macron, Anne Hidalgo, Gérald Darmanin, Christophe Castaner, Marine Le Pen…
The powder keg of the second five-year term*
[Didier Lallement décrit un “climat de violence” extrême dans le pays. Il est convaincu que le second quinquennat Macron sera sérieusement menacé par la rue.]
The dissatisfaction is perceived but in my opinion it is underestimated by many, with a few exceptions including the President of the Republic. Anger simmers. I am aware of playing Cassandras a little. Maybe I’m wrong. But you only have to follow the irresistible rise in the cost of living to measure that this second five-year term is going to be very complicated. The yellow vests won the first round. We won the second. I don’t know if there will be a third round, but there will be a third round. […] One day, I know that it will again be necessary to mass the workforce in front of the Elysée. […]
All the indicators of an overflow by the street are red. Everything contributes to it: the political situation, the social situation, the economic situation. What will be the next detonator? Retirees ? Inflation? I don’t know, but it could be worse than the yellow vests. In 2019, the protesters were not seasoned. Since then, they have gained experience. After the yellow vests, there was discontent against the pension reform project. The country is in a permanent state of turmoil.
Brutality as a strategy
[A son arrivée à la préfecture de police, le 21 mars 2019, Didier Lallement découvre des policiers traumatisés par les gilets jaunes et la prise de l’Arc de Triomphe, le 1er décembre 2018. Il décide rapidement de faire de sa réputation de “méchant” un élément majeur de sa communication.]
I find a field of ruins. Everyone feels an absolute failure. The morale of the police officers is at an all-time low. On the ground, they understood that they were defeated by the yellow vests. On the political level, the change of prefect can hardly pass for a victory. In the media, there is even talk of the abolition of the police headquarters. […] The problem is not the forces on the ground, nor the lack of means. The first problem is that of command. […]
I rediscovered this reputation when I was appointed to Paris. I make it part of my strategy. This image serves me deeply. To mark command is to give orders that should not be discussed. When I am given responsibilities, I assume them. I am not here to be loved. We are in a period of crisis, a time when it is not a question of “discussing”, but of succeeding. I don’t ask myself any metaphysical problems. My mission was to master the Saturday demonstration. […] The Chief of Police cannot split armor. He must present himself in the posture of paterfamilias, the stern figure of the father. This is what people expect. It’s also in my nature.
The scenario of the invasion of the Elysée
[Dès sa nomination, le préfet est taraudé par l’idée d’éviter des morts lors des manifestations de gilets jaunes.]
We were facing an insurrection, with the risk of opening fire by the security forces who were attacked with extreme violence. The police are armed with assault rifles. They can use it. The Republican Guard, inside the national palaces, could have fired if these had been invaded. This scenario was entirely possible. Especially if the demonstrators had reached the Elysée.
The principle of self-defense is to respond, possibly with the use of fire. If there had been deaths, the situation would have become much more serious. The government could fall.
The end of the demonstrations “à la papa”
[Le haut fonctionnaire réfute les critiques de certains généraux de gendarmerie sur l’organisation des manifestations. Si les rassemblements sont plus tumultueux qu’avant, il estime que c’est parce que… leurs participants se sont radicalisés, ce qui rend la prise de renseignements policière délicate.]
There are no longer demonstrators, but crowds. No more protest slogans but a sum of individual revolts, often with violence as the only objective and as the only identity, due to a lack of capacity to formulate a political program. […] It is a classic of the ancients to say that, in their time, it was better. Some have not yet understood that the Berlin Wall had fallen, and that the fundamentals of policing had changed. […] The police system is organized to glean information from political organizations during demonstration requests. A few years ago, political parties and unions knew their ability to mobilize. It was possible to anticipate the number of demonstrators. A large Parisian political or union demonstration was calibrated.
In the case of the yellow vests, there is no more organization, no more leaders. The demonstration has become a sum of individuals responding to slogans broadcast on the Internet. It is very difficult to predict the number of demonstrators and their attitude. The grid of the ground, with an aim of controlling the movements of crowd, becomes random. Where to place the men? I almost want to say: can’t wait for the return of the Communist Party!
The rise of violence
[L’ancien préfet de police affirme qu’au-delà des statistiques, notre société est bel et bien de plus en plus violente. Il en veut pour preuves le respect moindre qu’inspire aujourd’hui l’uniforme de police.]
The violence has become systematic and continues to escalate. I have seen it in all areas of daily life. On the public highway, in social protest, in family relations, in delinquent action. Property crime is down, but violence is up. Why hit a lady whose purse has just been stolen? Why do you have to kick him in the face? On the technical level, if I may say so, there is no need, the theft having already been committed. It’s part of the posture, in a way; a form of punctuation of the act.
Not a single arrest goes well. Nobody obeys. Physical force must be systematically used in police action. Delinquents or simple citizens: few submit to the public injunction. Those who do so rightly feel like the exception. Conversely, when a person is attacked in the street, no one intervenes.
The anguish of Notre-Dame
[Le 15 avril 2019 à 18h20, Notre-Dame brûle. Didier Lallement décide de laisser les journalistes et les officiels s’approcher au plus près de l’édifice, rue de la Cité. Toute la nuit, il se demandera ce qui se passera si la cathédrale s’effondre.]
This is one of the questions I ask myself throughout the night: aren’t the authorities and the journalists too close? Too exposed? When should I make the decision to roll them back? I try to be in constant anticipation. What will happen in an hour? In two hours ? The fire is feared to spread to nearby homes. Sparks fall on the prefecture and the Hôtel-Dieu. Men are regularly sent to the roofs of these buildings to ensure that there is no fire starting. But the real danger is the collapse of the cathedral. At some point, the problem is no longer whether we can put out the fire, but whether the whole building is not going to collapse. If Notre-Dame falls, the blast of the collapse can reach personalities and journalists, even the public. The risk is that those present will find themselves asphyxiated by a cloud of dust and debris. There is also the lead from the cathedral which is spreading in the atmosphere, and of which we do not know at this time the risk that it may or may not cause.
[Si Notre-Dame s’était écroulée, vous tombiez aussi ?, demande Jean-Jérôme Bertolus] I was more than falling. Not only was I no longer prefect of police, but I could be convicted of negligent homicide. Fortunately, no one died. I would have carried the responsibility all my life like a cross. Was I right? I will never know. I am aware that I took extreme risks that evening. Until the fire was brought under control, I felt every moment the sword I had above my head. During the night, the walls moved. Why did it hold? I still don’t know.
The Stade de France disaster
[La finale de la Ligue des Champions au Stade de France, le 28 mai 2022, débute avec trente-six minutes de retard. Des supporters de Liverpool sont molestés, de nombreuses agressions ont lieu aux abords de l’enceinte. Didier Lallement décide de démissionner sur-le-champ. Il partira finalement deux mois plus tard.]
No actor put himself in the position of supervising the whole evening. My regret is that I didn’t do it thinking that this coordination was not up to me but to the inter-ministerial delegation to major sporting events (Diges). It is this role of “integrator” that I should have taken on since, in the end, the responsibility for almost all the malfunctions was attributed to me.
I fully assume the failure of this evening as far as safety is concerned. I didn’t do what I usually did: meddle and take care of everything, even if it meant looking like an unpleasant senior official who was encroaching on other people’s toes.
[…] It was out of the question for me to remain in office after what had happened on May 28. I felt that my departure could no longer be postponed. I pointed this out the day after the final. The French flag had been soiled and that was unacceptable to me. The honor of the country was in question, I did not want to fall into the indignity of someone who flees his responsibilities.
[…] The police surveillance device was positioned in depth, that is to say beyond the stations and not between the stations and the pre-blocks. We thought that the problems would come from the cities implanted around the stadium but this is not what mainly happened. The device had a dual objective: to control the cities and secure the route of the Spanish supporters between the Saint-Denis fan zone and the stadium. As for the law enforcement units, they were behind the screening points, then they went straight into the stadium. So there was an empty space between the stations and the screening points, with few police officers, no municipal police officers, no stewards. A sort of no man’s land in terms of surveillance, which the bands took advantage of to attack the supporters.
[…] When the blockades were lifted, young offenders gained access to the gates of the stadium, which the pre-screening blockades prevented in previous meetings. But acts of delinquency also occurred at the exit of the RER and the metro. A majority of delinquents did not come, in my opinion, from the estates of Seine-Saint-Denis but from the north of Paris. They arrived by public transport. There were also unaccompanied minors. Presumably, the aggregation of the bands was done via social networks. There were undoubtedly watchwords. Their goal was to be numerous enough to be able to, in a way, “attack the stagecoach”. What happened on May 28 is unprecedented and will necessarily have to feed the reflection for the 2024 Olympics.
The Necessary Order, by Didier Lallement, with Jean-Jérôme Bertolus. Robert Laffont, 270 pages, €19.
* Headings are editorial.