Workplace elections were held in all parts and grades of the national police force in France from 20 to 23 November 2006. As well as the usual focus on defending the position of the police force in society, controversy was also raised in relation to the policies of Nicolas Sarkozy, the former Interior Minister and right-wing candidate for the presidential elections on 22 April 2007.
Background
Workplace elections take place every three years in the national police force. The elections provide the opportunity for measuring changes in the representativeness of the trade unions. The latter share the support of some 125,000 members of the police force (Police nationale), which is attached to the Ministry of the Interior and Territorial Facilities (Minstère de l’Intérieur et de l’Aménagement Territoriale, MIAT). The latest round of elections took place from 20 to 23 November 2006.
Members of the police force belong to several different electoral colleges, depending on their grade and specific occupation. The largest category consists of police officers and ‘non-commissioned officers’, of whom there are just over 100,000; professionals in this largest category range from rank-and-file police officers to corporals. The police force also comprises about 10,000 administrative and technical staff. The remainder of the force consists of either commanding officers (lieutenants, captains and majors) or of part of the highest-level electoral college, which is composed of superintendents and high-level civil servants.
Trade union landscape
Traditionally, trade unionism in the French police force has been relatively autonomous. Nevertheless, the trade union landscape has undergone several changes over the past decade (FR0112115N). A number of trade unions that had the majority support in their particular occupation – such as the National Uniformed Police Officers’ Union (Syndicat national des policiers en tenue, SNPT), the most popular union among rank-and-file police officers in the provinces, and the National Independent Police Union (Syndicat national indépendant de la police, SNIP), which maintained the majority support among riot police (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, CRS) – came together under the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA) and founded UNSA-Police. Moreover, the General Police Union (Syndicat général de la Police, SGP), which had majority support among rank-and-file police officers in Paris, joined the General Confederation of Labour – Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail – Force ouvrière, CGT-FO). Both of these groups are considered to be left-wing.
Unions that are more right-wing also reorganised at the turn of the century. The extreme right-wing Independent Professional Police Federation (Fédération professionnelle indépendante de la police, FPIP) remained independent; however, the two right-wing unions – namely Alliance, which organises rank-and-file police officers, and Synergie-Officiers – joined the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff – General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l’encadrement – Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC).
The other representative unions – the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT) and the French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) – together only represent barely more than 2% of the police force.
In 2003, in the run-up to the previous workplace elections, a split occurred in UNSA-Police, when SNPT announced that it was leaving the union and becoming completely independent once again. SNPT represented its own candidates in the elections and, although it did well obtaining 22% of the vote, it was nevertheless quite far off from achieving its ambition of hegemony. In 2005, the union therefore decided to rejoin UNSA-Police. Its results in the 2006 elections were difficult to compare with the previous results because the competitors were no longer exactly the same.
Election results
Participation in the elections increased from 77.1% in 2003 to 80.8% in 2006. The results in the various categories were as follows:
Rank-and-file police officers and non-commissioned officers:
- UNSA-Police: 41.1% ( 19 percentage points)
- Alliance: 36.5% ( 4 percentage points)
- SGP-FO: 15.3% ( 2.9 percentage points)
- FPIP: 4.7%
Officers:
- UNSA-Police: 53.1% (-2 percentage points)
- Synergie: 44.8%
Superintendents and high-level civil servants:
- SCHFPN: 58.5% (-28.5 percentage points)
- SICP: 35.8% (new union)
- UNSA: 5.7%
The results in the last category were surprising. The Independent Union of Police Superintendents (Syndicat indépendant des commissaires de police, SICP), affiliated to the CFDT, was established just six months before the elections. SICP made a breakthrough by reaping 35.8% of the votes, to the detriment of the powerful National Police Superintendents and High-Level Civil Servants’ Union (Syndicat des commissaires et hauts fonctionnaires de la police nationale, SCHFPN). This vote is meaningful in relation to how the policies of the then Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, are perceived by superintendents and by others in the highest echelons. SCHFPN’s General Secretary, Olivier Damien, has, moreover, recognised that his support for the minister’s policies seems to have been misunderstood.
Commentary
UNSA-Police has been the major winner in the 2006 elections. Even though it did not secure all of the votes that SNPT had won in the previous elections, the strength of its position is unquestionable. Some of the votes went to SGP-FO and some to the Alliance, both of which also increased their vote. The latter openly supports the ‘tough on crime’ policies of the former Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, while SGP-FO is far more critical of his policies than UNSA-Police. Bearing in mind these results, along with the surprise vote among the superintendents, it seems that the debate within the police force in relation to their place in society is becoming polarised. The controversy generated by Nicolas Sarkozy’s policies in the MIAT has thus caused divisions among the police force, just as it has in society in general.
Jean-Marie Pernot, Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES)