Is there a security problem in Orleans?

On September 18, a young man was shot dead in Saran, located north of Orléans. A week later, two people were seriously injured by gunfire in the city center of Orléans. Is there a security problem in the regional capital? The mayor (DVD), Serge Grouard reacts.

It was late at night when the police came knocking on the door of this resident of the impasse of Cruficix-Saint-Aignan in Orléans.Being woken up by the police for such serious things… I didn’t think I’d experience that here! I’m still in shock“, she says the day after the double attempted murder that took place right there, a stone’s throw from her home, in the city centre.

According to our information, two men aged between 20 and 30 were seriously injured by gunshots around 3am on Tuesday 24 September. One of the victims was shot in the chest and was found on the road. The other was reportedly shot in the head in a nearby apartment. An altercation reportedly began on Rue de Bourgogne earlier in the evening, before reaching its tragic conclusion on Impasse du Crucifix-Saint-Aignan, a stone’s throw from the Loire.

A week earlier, on the evening of September 18, a young man was shot dead in Saran, in the north of the Orléans metropolitan area. Around 10 p.m., a vehicle stopped on Rue du Bois Salé to open fire on the victim. Hit by two bullets to the head, he died on the spot, despite several attempts at resuscitation.

A homicide and two attempts in two weeks in Orléans, the multiplicity of facts is enough to be disconcerting. The mayor and president of the metropolis, Serge Grouard (DVD), assures that he does not observe “of degradation in statistics [de la délinquance à Orléans]which are worth what they are worth“. On the other hand, “On the ground, I know there are a number of problems.“.

He thus castigates the “groups of people who come to the city, we don’t really know from where, we don’t really know how, and who settle there“. A reference to homeless people sent to Centre-Val de Loire from Île-de-France. In May 2023, the government asked prefects to create “airlock“in several regions of France, including the Centre-Val de Loire. According to the Loiret prefecture, 519 people were taken care of in this context between May 2023 and March 2024 across the entire region, and not just in Orléans.

Serge Grouard draws a direct causal link between the rise in insecurity and immigration, particularly irregular immigration. He asks the State “that illegal immigrants be returned to their country of origin“More generally, he is demanding more resources from the State, particularly for the national police and justice services.”who do a great job with three candle ends“.

And not only that.We have a problem with homeless people, a certain number of whom have obvious psychiatric problems. How do you get them taken care of? There are no more places!“

It should be noted, however, that foreigners only represent 17 to 18% of perpetrators of homicides and attempted homicides, according to the 2023 figures from the Ministry of Internal Security Statistics Service (SSMI). In both cases, the number of victims is up in 2023. Compared to 2016, the number of homicides is slightly up, and the number of attempts has jumped by almost 80%. An increase that the number of foreigners identified among those involved cannot mathematically explain.

In Orleans, no statistics”does not correlate with an increase in arrests of illegal immigrants“, assures Thierry Guiguet-Doron, departmental director of Public Security (DDSP) in Loiret.

The SSMI also asks that all these statistics be taken with caution, arguing that the increase in victims “may result not only from the evolution of the phenomenon itself, but also from the evolution of the propensity to file a complaint and the greater or lesser awareness of this type of attack in society, or from the evolution of recording practices by the security services“.

For the specific case of Orléans and Loiret, the services “do not see a big increase in homicides in recent years“, assures Thierry Guiguet-Doron. At the beginning of 2024, he even observes “a slight drop in delinquency” in the department.

According to the DDSP, the recurrence of several serious incidents in close proximity is “a bad time, and I hope it’s over” :

We need to reassure people: this is an epiphenomenon. There is extreme violence in the drug world. Before, they failed. The last cases, they did not fail. But it happens between them, only.

Thierry Guiguet-Doron, DDSP 45

Generally speaking, “there is no explosion of violence“. The neighbor of the impasse du Crucifix-Saint-Aignan says she knows”to sort things out” :

I think there is a context to this violence, it is not linked to Orléans or this neighborhood. I am not afraid. I love this neighborhood. This is a unique tragedy, not usual. I will stay in my neighborhood.

A resident of the impasse du Crucifix-Saint-Aignan

The same goes for Léa, a resident of the city centre, who regularly goes out in the evening on rue de Bourgogne, where the altercation leading to the double attempted murder is said to have started.It’s really bright, there’s a lot of traffic… Generally speaking, it’s okay.“, she argues about street safety.”It has changed a lot in the last twenty years.“She says she is rather afraid when the street lights go out, especially in her street.”I walk very fast to my house, it’s a little scary” she concedes.

Thierry Guiguet-Doron, like Serge Grouard, is nevertheless calling for more resources for the police.This would allow us to be more present in public transport, to carry out more operations, to be more on the public highway, to have people to operate the cameras, carry out investigations… We would increase our rate of elucidation.“

According to municipal statistics, crime in Orléans increased slightly in 2023 compared to 2022, but has decreased by 18% since 2019 (without including data related to drug trafficking and consumption). And while homicides have been slightly up for ten years in France, their number has almost halved since 1996.