The municipality headed by Christian Estrosi, at the forefront of this security tool, plans to further expand its video surveillance system in 2025.
The city of Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), considered the most video-monitored in France, wants to equip itself with 300 additional cameras in 2025, it explained during the presentation of its new budget. Nearly 5,000 cameras are already installed in the Riviera capital, which was among the first cities to rely on this security tool with an urban supervision center inaugurated in 2010.
The precise locations of these new cameras have not yet been chosen, even if Mayor Christian Estrosi (Horizons) mentioned the hilly areas, the popular district of Cimiez, where temporary cameras had been positioned following repeated car fires in March, but also on the “green corridor”, in connection with its extension which follows the controversial demolitions of the theater and the convention center.
In Nice, the security theme is still one of the most important expenditures: nearly 93 million euros are still devoted to “prevention, proximity and security” in the budget for the year 2025, voted on Wednesday during of a municipal council where the community’s debt, estimated at 548 million euros, has once again been debated.
50 additional police officers and bonuses
The community had also announced that it wanted to recruit 50 municipal police officers in order to reach a workforce of 600 agents. A new compensation scheme for the Nice “PM” was also adopted on Wednesday, and provides for a fixed bonus between 500 and 2,500 euros depending on the category, “the maximum permitted”defended the first deputy in charge of security, Anthony Borré.
“It took more than ten years to obtain this revaluation from successive governments since it is a decree of June 2024 which allows communities to better compensate municipal police officers”he explained. The variable part of these bonuses will also increase, detailed the elected official, welcoming in passing not to see his police on strike like in Marseille or Lyon.
By 2026, the municipal and national police of Nice must come together in a large shared police station. In this “police hotel” in place of the old Saint-Roch hospital will be a new urban supervision center, already touted as one of the most technological in Europe. Concerning video surveillance cameras, the mayor of Nice continues to plead in favor of artificial intelligence, to date prevented by the national commission for information technology and freedoms (Cnil), whose councilor continues to demand its dismantling .
