"We empty the ocean with a teaspoon": at the Lens police station, the blues of the blues

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Joseph, 39 years old in a few days, waddles among the pallets, in the reserve of a large discount store in Liévin (Pas-de-Calais). “So, repeats the policeman in uniform who stands in front of him, can you tell me what went through your head? Joseph sweats. “I'm a moron, boss. Besides, I have probation. Am I going to jail? Piercings, black and green jogging jacket, unbuttoned jeans "because they no longer close", Joseph had appeared ten minutes earlier in the parking lot of the supermarket where Nico and his teammate, Sébastien (they wish to remain anonymous, as all the people mentioned by their first name alone), intervened for another story.

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Joseph stopped for a moment, chatted with the police, almost tapping them on the shoulder, small talk, smiles. What was he hoping for? Less than five minutes later, the cashier approached the police: “‘Can you come? Joseph had paid for his three cans of beer, but not the bottle of perfume or the jar of ultra-strong fixing gel that had "forgotten" in a pocket of his tracksuit top. “Gel, Nico points out placidly, you don’t even have hair…” The store will file a complaint, the manager insists on it, because “Sunday, it was already peanut butter”. Total damage of the two thefts: 7.84 euros, which Joseph undertakes to reimburse "Wednesday, chief, when I touch the RSA". Indignant pout of the cashier: “He told us the same thing on Sunday and he did not come. »

Every day, Nico and Sébastien crisscross the roads of the "public security district of Lens", 630 police officers divided between a central police station and four police stations in Liévin, Avion, Hénin-Beaumont, Carvin, to watch over the safety of the 330,000 inhabitants and 38 municipalities of the territory. The unemployment rate there readily exceeds 20%, reaching almost 30% in Lens.

Police statistics have their own indicators: each year, 20,000 complaints, 13,000 handrails and 40% of crime incidents in the Pas-de-Calais department are recorded there, for 60 injured police officers and 36,000 police interventions. rescue police, nearly 100 a day. “It never seems to stop, observes Major Sébastien, 49, including thirty years in the police, most of the time against a background of alcohol. »

That afternoon, in addition to the robbery of the Liévin supermarket, Nico and Sébastien had already intervened regarding a neighborhood problem between a sixty-year-old woman and her neighbour, whose only fault seemed to consist in owning a peaceful dog . Before tonight, they will still have settled minor disputes, perhaps flushing out a new squat around rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, where Afghan and Syrian minors from Calais survive by offering their services to drug traffickers. raw “for a daily kebab”. The two street cops affirm that they expect nothing more from politicians and not more from their hierarchy, regret the time before, that of "the real police, when we worked without counting the hours but without this obsession of the leaders for numbers ". The blues of the blues: familiar air, in a house that is going through a deep crisis.

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