Police
Franco-British brainstorming on law and order
On 18 and 19 October 2006, French police officers and gendarmes welcomed six of their British colleagues to Rouen for an exchange of experience and good practice in the field of law and order. The British officers came from the National Centre for Policing Excellence and Investigate Skills at Wyboston, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and North Wales. The sessions at Rouen Police Training College were held within the framework of our two countries’ excellent cooperation on international security. After the G8 Gleneagles summit, in the run-up to the London Olympic Games and given the French expertise, the discussions between these law and order professionals proved extremely valuable and constructive, and a second series of sessions is likely to take place next year in the United Kingdom./.
Inspector Phil Smith from Surrey Police spent a month in the French gendarmerie under cooperation agreements
In June this year, Inspector Phil Smith from Surrey Police spent a month in the French gendarmerie under cooperation agreements between the British and French police forces. Gendarmerie officers spend a few weeks in a British police force and, in exchange, British officers spend an equivalent time in a Gendarmerie brigade, with four British police officers doing so this year.
"Meeting French Defence Minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, at the inauguration of a gendarmerie brigade in Châteaudun"
"Class photo, with a gendarmerie school liaison officer in Châteaudun"
"On a visit to Chantilly to study relations between mobile gendarmerie squadrons and the general public during major events"
French Police fact-finding visit to the UK
22-25 November
In the framework of the excellent Franco-British bilateral cooperation on internal security and particularly in the fight against terrorism and crime, a high-level French delegation of police officers, gendarmes and a technical expert is visiting the United Kingdom to look at Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) as part of a study commissioned by the French General Administrative Inspectorate (IGA). The visit is being organized by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the Home Office (PITO - Police Information Technology Organization) and Northamptonshire, Essex and Kent police.
FRANCE - TERRORISM - INTERNET
FRANCE - TERRORISM - INTERNET First database on terrorist acts launched in France
Since 4 October, the “terrorist acts database”, compiled by researchers at the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique [Strategic Research Foundation] (FRS) for the Interior Ministry, has been publicly accessible at www.interieur.gouv.fr and www.frstrategie.org.
First appearing in 1965, it currently lists as exhaustively as possible every terrorist act committed against France and her interests worldwide up to 2003, but it is going to be brought up to date and subsequently regularly updated. It is also planned to include attacks targetting other European Union States. In March this year, the then interior minister, Dominique de Villepin, announced the creation of this totally unique tool to allow every citizen access to vital information on the reality of terrorism.
Organized chronologically, the database is keyword searched. Listing attacks from the first to be recorded (3 February 1965, against an Aix-en-Provence shopkeeper) to the most recent (11 June 2003, Brussels letter bombs), the database allows useful links to be established and any broad trends identified. So we can see a clear reduction in terrorist activity perpetrated in France by French nationals since the 1980s. As regards Corsican terrorism, because of the high number of small-scale attacks and bombings, the FRS lists only attacks resulting in fatalities, i.e. 25 incidents.