By Amanda Mayo Pérez
VILLENEUVE-SAINT-GEORGES, France, Sept 18 (Sciences Po) - Amidst a plague of break-ins, the inhabitants of the southern Paris suburb, Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, decided to jump in the band-wagon of neighborhood watches to further security in their residential neighborhoods.
Neighbors can now signal through a free app the sightings of suspicious people scanning neighborhood’s empty homes or the eventual unwanted canvasser. The system puts the as of now 250 members of the initiative in contact with municipal police agents, who verify the claims. To ensure accountability, none of the overseers’ messages can be anonymous, and a certificate that one lives in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges is demanded in order to sign up.
After his house was burglarized, Laurent Mauvilly, an inhabitant of the suburb since 2007, realized that security was a widespread issue in the city : “ 80 other houses in my area were also broken into,” said the 51-year-old local who introduced the neighborhood initiative in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. “When you are a victim of such an act, you feel that your intimacy has been violated.”
Security remains an issue in the southern suburb, where inhabitants suffered 115 burglaries in 2022, according to the ministerial department of national security statistics. Sometimes, the inhabitants get robbed several times, even the highly placed ones: in 2022, the house of Cécile Duflot, ex-politician and head of Oxfam France since 2018, was broken into twice in the span of two months.
After the wave of robberies, Laurent Mauvilly decided to act. He did some research and found the Voisins Vigilants et Solidaires app. He immediatly signed up. He also canvassed his fellow neighbors to incite them to create a stronger community. He managed to convince 87 households to join him.
In 2022, the Voisins Vigilants initiative counts a million users in France, and has managed to convince 100 city halls to sign up and become “Mairie Vigilantes” (Watchful City Halls). 7042 neighborhoods across Paris and the surrounding suburbs are also part of this local watch scheme.
“The concept has been adapted to the French mentality. There is no question of drifting towards armed militias as in the United States”, assures Thierry Chicha, the founder of the Voisins Vigilants system in France, on his website. “Voisins Vigilants et Solidaires are not neighborhood gendarmes: they are attentive citizens.”
Civilian neighborhood watch groups have been developed around the world, in particular in England, Canada or the United States, and have not escaped controversy. In 2012, Florida was at the center of media attention as a coordinator of the neighborhood watch of Sandford, George Zimmerman, fatally shot teenager Taryvon Martin. While the former was acquitted, his actions generated criticism and suspicion with regards to these initiatives.
“The point of this app is also to strengthen the links between neighborhoods”, explains Frédéric Barret, an ex-policeman working for Voisins Vigilants “Studies have shown that the feeling of insecurity has fallen 90% in neighborhoods where the dispositif is in place”.
The app has proven useful in case of suspicious sightings and to communicate city related information, for example if there is a roadblock due to construction work or if an elderly person living alone needs assistance. Yet, neighbors are aware that Voisins Vigilants is not the paragon of security
“It allows us to share tips and advice on how to protect ourselves,” said Laurent Mauvilly. “But an app is not going to single-handedly fix insecurity issues around here”
Comments