It has become the number one priority for the French, according to an Odoxa-CGI survey published last December, and security is also a subject dear to the rightwing, which continues to invest locally in video surveillance devices.
This direction was confirmed by the figures published on Tuesday, February 4 by La Gazette des communes, according to which the communes run by a mayor of the right are better equipped with cameras than the cities of the left.
With terrorist threats continuing, between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2020, the number of video surveillance cameras in the 50 most populated cities of the country was multiplied by 2,4 – from nearly 4 800 cameras to more than 11 400.
It should be noted that during this post-attack period, the number of cameras jumped by 200 percent in the communes on the right, by 126 percent in those in the center (LREM and UDI) and by only 63 percent in the cities under the aegis of a leftist mayor.
These figures testify to an increased use of video surveillance by right-wing politicians, more than by those on the left.
It is therefore not surprising that out of the top ten places in the ranking of the best-equipped cities, there is no commune on the left. With more than 2 600 cameras for 346 000 inhabitants, the number was multiplied by 3,5 during the last mandate of Christian Estrosi (LR), in the city of Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) – by far the most watched in France, with one camera for 130 inhabitants.
The Riviera town is already experimenting with facial recognition. Then follow Nîmes (LR, 411 cameras) Mulhouse (LR, 265), Annecy (UDI, 273), Perpignan (LR, 260), Orléans (DVD, 210), Argenteuil (LR, 180), Toulon (LR, 273) , Besançon (LREM, 189) and Saint-Étienne (LR, 271).
The weekly was able to draw a meaningful graph from the data. We thus learn that at the beginning of 2020, the cities on the right had an average of 163,65 cameras per 100 000 inhabitants, a figure which fell to 98,69 in the centrist municipalities and down to 55,07 in those on the left.
Note that for this report, the Gazette only counted the cameras monitoring the public highway, therefore excluding those in public transport or on public buildings.
One comment
It would be interesting to compare crime statistics against the presence and frequency of security cameras. The increased popularity of the right these days is focused on the wants and needs of the public. A major public concern is public safety and security, especially over the increase in crime due to the immigration of non-European migrants, many of them illegal. So, how well have increased security cameras been working?
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