This is the nerve center. On one floor of the Périgueux barracks, a very special place is behind a door protected by a code. This is the Operational and Intelligence Center of the Gendarmerie (CORG) of the Dordogne. This is the telephone switchboard receiving all emergency calls made to 17 for the gendarmerie sector, i.e. the entire departmental territory except the urban areas of Périgueux and Bergerac. “And this, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,” recalls Chief Warrant Officer Sylvie (1), interim head of the CORG.
Every day, there are two soldiers on shift: from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., then from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. In total, the workforce consists of 13 people. In the CORGs of the large departments, there is a seconded shift manager who manages the system. Not in Périgord: the shift manager is part of the pair at work. It is up to him to determine whether and what means are being used. In 2023, 109,500 calls were received here. Only 13% resulted in interventions. We therefore understand that the rest concerns calls which should not necessarily reach the emergency service.
Only 13% of calls resulted in interventions in 2023
Not really emergencies
“South West” was authorized to follow, for a morning, the “CORGists”, as they call themselves. And indeed, non-urgent calls are frequent. Like this man who calls about a road accident. He did not want to call the firefighters “so as not to disturb them”. Or a nurse working at the home of a hemiplegic patient: he can’t get him up, so he called 17. “It’s medical, sir. It is not the gendarmes who will intervene, but the 15th,” recalls the operator.
Around one in ten calls requires the assistance of the gendarmerie. Like this man who arrived at his mother’s house, abandoned for a year, and who discovered the front door smashed. Garden tools and a chainsaw are missing. “You don’t touch anything anymore, sir, our colleagues will arrive,” guides the operator. Immediately, the latter made a radio call to the patrol closest to the scene. “Thanks to a screen, we can follow their position in real time,” says the chief warrant officer. We follow their intervention because our job is also to secure their interventions. If they don’t give any news, we watch over them. We can send reinforcements if necessary, such as a helicopter, divers or a dog team. »
“You never know what’s going to happen. And we are at the heart of public service”
And sometimes, it is difficult to sort things out, as with domestic violence: “Before sending a patrol, we must check whether the perpetrator is potentially dangerous,” says the shift manager. We then pass it on to the men who go there, so that they know what to expect. »
According to their formulas, operators are like “a beacon in the night”. There is always someone answering the line. Even for a flowerpot theft, which does not need to go through the emergency center, but can wait for the field brigade to take care of it.
CORGists remember other crazy requests: someone who has lost their cell phone and who asks for their device to be geolocated; a woman who is bored, at 3 a.m., and who calls on the 17th to speak to someone; a man who has a headache and asks what he should do; a motorist who calls in the middle of the night to find out how many points he has left on his license… “I still love this job,” insists the shift manager. You never know what will happen. And then we are at the heart of public service: we respond to people’s expectations. Furthermore, we always have a link with the field, even if we are not there. »
“We have to sort it out”
Precisely, the difficulty is knowing whether resources must be committed when the operators are not on site. “We have to sort through the emergencies,” summarizes Warrant Officer Sylvie. We only have our ears to assess a situation and make a decision with our common sense. So of course, we don’t risk taking a bullet like our comrades, but there is a certain verbal violence that can be felt when we explain that we won’t come. »
Unlike people who call for nothing, some callers are a little frivolous. Like the manager of a tobacco shop who put burglars to flight at 5 a.m., but who only called the 17th at 8 a.m., preventing the gendarmes from catching the suspects in flagrante delicto and complicating the investigation.
(1) As a security measure, only the first names of the gendarmes are given.
