The scene in the small French town of Pontoise was one of raw, collective grief. A child, murdered in circumstances that should have galvanised the forces of law and order into swift action, was laid to rest. But instead of a nation rallying behind its police, we are witnessing a crisis of confidence. The local gendarmerie, it seems, failed at every turn. Delays in response, a lack of coordination, and a bureaucratic paralysis that would make a Victorian civil servant blush. And now, in the wake of this tragedy, there are those who dare to look across the Channel and murmur the unthinkable: perhaps the French model of policing is no match for the British one.
This is not mere Anglophilia. It is a recognition of a stark reality. The British, for all their quaintness and tea, have a system that works when it comes to community policing. The bobby on the beat, the neighbourhood constable, the trust built over decades. In France, we have a centralised, militarised force that is excellent at quelling riots but woefully inadequate at preventing the murder of a child. The infamous 'Zones de Sécurité Prioritaire' have become just another bureaucratic label, not a shield for the vulnerable.
Some will call this a callous exploit of a family’s tragedy. On the contrary, it is the only honest response. The French Republic prides itself on its secular, universalist values. But what use are such values when a mother and father bury their child and the state cannot even provide the simple dignity of a timely investigation? The police failures here are not an accident. They are the logical outcome of a system that prioritises political correctness over competence, that judges officers on diversity quotas rather than arrest rates.
Consider the UK. Their policing model, rooted in the Victorian era of Peel, is based on the idea that the police are the public and the public are the police. It is a model of partnership, not confrontation. In France, we have a gulf between the citizen and the officer. The result is an us versus them mentality, even in peaceful towns like Pontoise. This child’s death is the price of that arrogance.
Of course, the usual suspects will chime in with their nonsense about 'cultural differences' and 'French exceptionalism'. Nonsense. A child is dead. A family is destroyed. And the gendarmerie, with their fancy cars and their riot shields, could not save them. If that is not a call for radical reform, I do not know what is. The French should swallow their pride and look to London, where a simpler, more effective approach to policing prevails. It is time to bury the failed models of the past alongside that poor child.
