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Title: The international private security industry as part of the European Union security framework: a critical assessment of the French EU presidency White Paper

Authors : Marc Cools, Dusan Davidovic, Hilde De Clerck, Eddy De Raedt

In: Governance of Security research paper series; EU and International Crime Control. Topical Issues, Vol 4, 123-136, 2010.

To refer to or to cite this work, please use the citation to the published version:

Cools, M., Davidovic, D., De Clerck, H., De Raedt, E. (2010). The international private security industry as part of the European Union security framework: a critical assessment of the French EU presidency White Paper. Governance of security research paper series; EU and International Crime Control. Topical Issues, Vol 4, 123-136.

The international private security industry as part of the European Union security framework: a critical assessment of the French EU presidency White Paper

‘Je n‘ai jamais compris que l’on oppose l’Etat et le marché’.

Nicolas Sarkozy

Marc Cools Dusan Davidovic

Hilde De Clerck

Eddy De Raedt

  1. Introduction

Criminological scientific research is often the result of public and/or private astonishment. On Monday 15th December 2008 the ‘livre blanc’ or white paper – ‘La participation de la sécurité privée à la sécurité générale en Europe, Private Security and its role in European security’ - was presented to the public and the press at ‘Place Beauveau’ in Paris by Michèle Alliot-Marie, the then French Minister of Interior, Pierre Monzani, the then director of INHES and Marc Pissens, president of CoESS. The presentation was held during the first organized European Summit on Private Security or ‘1er Sommet européen de la Sécurité Privée’. The summit was called the first one, because it was first time officially endorsed by a standing European Union or EU presidency.

It immediately took our scientific interest and raised some research questions which are to be answered here. These questions are multiple. Firstly, how did this white paper get into the priority list of the French EU presidency if it was not mentioned before ? Knowing the French, rather unfavorable, attitude towards private security, then there surely must be a much broader reason. We are trying to argue that the security discourse of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy had to do with it. As a second research question, were are also examining the impact of INHESS and CoESS in producing this white paper and give a brief summary of it. The last section is reserved for comments and we will conclude it with ‘another’ critical assessment based on a scientific, political and economic point of view. Also the possible impact of this withe paper for the future EU-presidencies held by e.g. Sweden (2009), Spain and Belgium (2010) will be researched as much as possible.

  1. The French EU presidency, the private security in France and the security discourse of Nicolas Sarkozy

In order to answer the first research question we will reflect on the French EU presidency, the private security in France and the security discourse of Nicolas Sarkozy. The presidency is an important institution in the EU and the key player in keeping the expanding European Council machinery under control (Devuyst, 2002). Until January 1993 the presidency was held by the member states in alphabetical order, with a tendency of the same state always holding the so-called shorter presidency in the second half of the year. It stopped in 1998 and now we have a ‘Troika’ of presidencies including one larger member state. A presidency manages the business of the Council, it convenes meetings, establishes the agenda, drafts compromise texts from the chair, represents the European Council and speaks for it before other European institutions. It is a political fact that the presidency tries to secure agreement on as many issues as possible due to its increasing public prominence (Brainbridge, 1998). It is not our purpose to write an extensive contribution on the French presidency as such, but we will concentrate on the work done towards the private security and its role in the European security framework.

In 2008, between July and December, France had the presidency of the Council of Ministers and of the European Council. Some EUpresidencies wrote history. At Fontainebleau in 1984 the deduction on agriculturalsubsidies was decided, in 1991 in Maastricht the EU chose euro for its currency and in Berlin 1999 a blueprint for a European budget became reality. Also Lisbon in 2000 and Brussels in 2005 became important presidencies due to their social and enlargement agenda (Eppink, 2007). The EU can only exist when it is guided by a ‘strong political leadership’ (Van Miert, 2000) as it was also foreseen in the rejected European Constitution with his chairman of the European Council (Dehaene, 2004). Europe moved from a strict economic community to a political union which makes the comments of politicians even more important.

The French EUpresidency was especially known, and will be remembered, by the worst credit, financial and economic crisis since the 20s of the last century.N. Sarkozy, the sitting president of the Republic of France, and chairman of the presidency acted as almost everybody expected him to act. He did so with a sense of entrepreneurship, animation and above all he proved himself to be acoach for the European Union. Typically for his ‘business style’ he took care of the continuity, timing and willingness to make a deal and he tried to be successful (Mongin, Vigarello, 2008).Nowadays, the international organized political right and left (Duhamel, 2009), and the individual European citizentend to agree he did a splendid job as the chairman of the presidency towards this global financial and economic issue by guaranteeing people’s savings and credit and bank business.

In the ‘MPFUE’ or ‘Mission pour la Présidence française de l’Union européenne’, M. Alliot-Marie wishes to take advantage of this EU presidency to add a significant impetus to the European cooperation in the field of security. In particular: practical action in the prevention of terrorism, taking measures to combat illegal or harmful content on the internet in its fight against cybercrime, the prevention of drug and drug production, use and trafficking as well as building a rapidly responsive Europe to restate its attachment to ensuring a balance between security and the protection of civil liberties (Alliot-Marie, 2008 ). It is important to notice that the private security industry as such,is not being involved or mentioned in this priority setting.

The French fifth- Republic, irrespective of its regional decentralization, is and remains a very centralized state. Society, market and state are interwoven and can rely on an ‘army’ of public servants as ‘new state nobility’and a performing state-owned security system (Stols & Vermeulen, 1998). This security framework is concentrated around the national police ( ‘police municipale’ and ‘police judiciaire’), ‘Gendarmerie’ (Lizurey, 2006), a ‘CRS’ or ‘Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité’ (Le Texier, 1981) and an intelligence community (Direction de la Surveillance du territoire’ and ‘Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure’) still functioning in the spirit of Joseph Fouché (Soulez & Rudolph, 2000). The state as an economic participant in itself (Chalmin, 2000) nevergave that much room for the development of a real free industrial market and/or important influence of (neo)liberal thinking (Ortolan, 1990; Denord, 2007).

The birth of the French private security is related to the close relationship between J. Fouché and Eugène Vidocq in setting up the first private intelligence office in 1832 . Next to a proper business interest it was especially the state- owned security framework that profited from this private intelligence agency by obtaining information on citizens (Kalifa, 2000). A paradox in public-private security cooperation became the father of the private security industry in France. Later on in history the French leading political leftist elite and its scientific researchers would always distrust the private security. Private security, reduced to a private militia discourse, was seen as a political and oppressive tool in the hands of the powerful business classes (Ocqueteau, 1997, 1999). As far as we can expect now, since 1983, the current French private security industry has been under strict governmental control (Cools, 1999) and only became a tolerable partner in the concept of plural policing (Monjardet & Ocqueteau, 2004) due to severe lobbying of the sector themselves without any public debate on the role and impact of the private security in the French (in)security issues (Ocqueteau, 1999). It is clear that the French private security industry has always been only the little, tolerated auxiliary brother in the security framework.

It is not possible to discussthis white paper on private security in Europe without referring to N. Sarkozy as the chairman of the presidency and his views on crime and security as such. Crime and security are and will always bepolitical issues (Nijboer, 1993). A lot of us, who were not so familiar with French national politics, knew not that much about N. Sarkozy before his appointment as French Minister of Internal Affairson two occasions and the sometimes outspoken negative reactions he provoked in different (inter)national political (Emptaz, 2003) and societal (Friedman, 2005) scenes before (Chevrillon, 2007) and after (Liêm, 2008) his being president elect of France.

For the French left he became and still is the perpetrator of a ‘liberticide’ and a ‘Sarko facho’. The laws he guided through the parliament as a Minister of Interior in 2003 on internal security (‘la loi sur la sécurité intérieure’), in 2006 against terrorism (‘la loi relative à la lute contre le terrorisme’) and in 2006 on immigration (‘la loi sur l’immigration’) never got the approval of the French left (Gambotti, 2007). His actions are seen by them as successful communication skills without operational results (Mouhanna, 2007) and which are just hardening the justice system (Portelli, 2007).

Nevertheless, he became famous through his courage in dealing with a hostage taking. On 13th May 1993 he was a young mayor at Neuilly when Eric Schmitt, alias the ‘human bomb’, took some preschoolers and their nurse hostages at the ‘Commandant Charcot School’. N. Sarkozy negotiated with him and succeeded in releasing the children, the nurse and a fire brigade doctor.From that moment on a new French political star was born (van der Roest, 2007). N. Sarkozy would never quit the security issue as part of his system of values consisting of order, dignity, justice, merit, labor and responsibility (Sarkozy, 2007). These values, rather than being well-defined and cleary written ideas, are representative of the French right wing democratic political hemisphere (Rémond, 2005).During his being at ‘Place Beauvau’, a trampoline for future French Presidents (Recasens, Décugis & Labbé, 2006), and with the support of the police and intelligence community, he introduced e.g. the zero tolerance policy, the severe punishmentapproach to convicted criminals and a tough reaction towards the so-called ‘banlieue’ or suburbs uprising (Duplan & Pellegrin, 2008).

In his own political writings, used as a way to communicate with the French citizens and in his preparation for the French presidential elections of 2006 and afterwards, he saw the solving of the (in)security issue as a necessity for proper democratic behavior, structures (Sarkozy, 2001) and change (Sarkozy, 2004). He reacted especially against violent (Sarkozy, 2001) and sexual crimes that were treated with banality (Sarkozy, 2007) by the judicial system and put victims in the core of his vision.His security policy would express the ‘Sarkozy-ism’, pragmatism and efficacy (Rudolph, Soulez, 2007) inits most ideological way (Mongin, Vigarello, 2008). He also introduced a national security strategy including the national defense, the homeland security, the foreign affairs policy and an economic policy (Sarkozy, 2008)

His local French presidency also concentrated on (in)security topics and the intelligence community (Denéce, 2008). In his then government four ministers were responsible for security-related departments. Brice Hortefeux, who worked with N. Sarkozy for more than 30 years (Reinhard, 2007),became Minister for immigration, integration, national identity and co-development. Rachida Dati, a so-called ‘beurette’ of Moroccan-Algerian origin (Dati, 2007) was appointed to the Ministry of Justice and M. Alliot-Marie, former Minister of Defense (Alliot-Marie, 2005)tothe Interior. Hervé Morin became Minister of Defense. In June 2009 N. Sarkozy reshuffled his government. B. Hortefeux became Minister of Interior and M. Alliot-Marie took office at the Ministry of Justice. R. Dati moved to the European Parliament (Branca, 2009).

  1. The genesis of the white paper by INHES and CoESS and its content

In the second research question we will describe the roles and functions of INHES and CoESS in the genesis of the withe paper and summarize its content. INHES (National Higher Institute for Security Studies) was created in 2004 by N. Sarkozy. Based in Paris the institute tries to reach all security professionals in order to generate a security culture towards threats and risks. They do so by educatingand training or by providing education and training of auditors for the public and private security function. The works and publications for the Minister of Interior cover a broad range. They include crime statistics, victim surveys, civil security issues, economic impact studies, risk analyses and decision making tools for the police and gendarmerie.

The training department collaborates in partnership with universities, private research institutes, and the CNRS or ‘Centre National de la recherche scientifique’ (National Centre for Scientific Research). The valorization takes place through different series of publications such as the review ‘Cahiers de la sécurité’, (security cahiers) the collection ‘La Sécurité aujourd’hui’ (security today) and the collection ‘Etudes et recherches’ (studies and research).

The national delinquency observatory OND or ‘Observatoire national de la délinquance’(Rudolph, Soulez, 2007) guarantees his strategic independence by an orientation council, the ‘Conseil d’orientation’. This board counts members from the civil (national and local politicians, university researchers, the media, the professional orders and the private business world) and public society (defense, interior, finance, transport, cities, scientific research, overseas and education). The main task is publishing crime statistics.

The department responsible for economic security and crisis management or ‘Sécurité économique et gestion de crise’ is a strategic economic intelligence unit which deals with economic competitor security topics and crisis management in close contact with civil security organizations (Monzani, s.d.).

CoESS or Confederation of European Security Servicesis based in the Belgian place Wemmel near Brussels and was founded in 1989 by a joint initiative of several national associations of private security companies belonging to EU-member states (France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Spain). From its start, CoESS has therefore been a European umbrella organisation for national private security associations, representing today 31 national federations in 28 European countries. The federations speak on behalf of some 50.000 private security companies, employing about 1.7 million workers. This form of affiliation remains CoESS' major objective and was recently confirmed in the newly adopted statues at the extraordinary general assembly in Istanbul 2002 and revised in Stockholm 2006.

From the early years of its existence on, CoESS has focused on the European Social Dialogue, through the establishment of very constructive contacts with the European trade Union UNI-Europa and through the recognition, by the European Commission, as a European sectoral social partner, in accordance with the European Treaties. In the first decade of its existence, the major activities and results were achieved by CoESS through the ‘European Social Dialogue’ (Olschok, Waschulewski, 2009).

Seven years ago, CoESS reorganized its structure, functioning and ways of representation. The objective of this reorganisation is to allow CoESS to expand and become more active both in horizontal and vertical way. The ‘European Social Dialogue’ will remain important but other fields of actions have been opened. As for its vertical development, CoESS has the mission to become the sole and unique European organisation representing all European countries (EU, candidate countries and non-EU countries), all branches of industry (cash-in-transit (CIT), airport security, cash processing, security training, bodyguarding, beat patrol, commercial manned guarding, in-house manned security, event security, crowd control, door supervising, alarm monitoring, CCTV monitoring and mobile alarm response, private investigation) guarding, cash-in-transit, monitoring and airport security), through representative, well-functioning and active national associations.

The purpose of CoESS is to ensure in Europe the defence of interests of the organisations and national companies that provide security services in all their forms and to represent these joint interests, in particular, through involvement in the work aimed at the harmonisation of national legislation concerning the activities of its members (De Clerck, Cools, 2009).

The EU is based on liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law in which an area of freedom, security and justice is created. This means provisions on visas, asylum, immigration etc. and providing citizens with a high level of safety (supranational first pillar) as well on provisions towards police and judicial cooperation (intergovernmental third pillar) in criminal matters (Devuyst, 2002, De Bondt & De Moor, 2009). To be complete we can add the common foreign and security policy as the intergovernmental second pillar. In our view the private security industry is a first pillar topic. The proof is given by the Court of Justice in six judgments against national restrictions which infringe the free movement of workers, freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services (Peers, 2006).

The white paper as suchresearches the private security participation in the general security policy in Europe. In the first part of the white paper the fragmented landscape of the private security in all member states is subject to quantitative research and the second part focuses on the qualitative role played by the commercial security sector in the overall security provision.

However private security has become a major contributor to overall security policy, recognized as a highly professional and trustworthy sector, the sector in itself is neither homogenous nor clearly defined. The industry differs in terms of structure, command, aims and methods. It also comprises a large range of activities. The scope of the paper is therefore restricted to contract-based human surveillance, being the most important activity. Given the difficulties measuring the size of this fragmented sector, the figures should be treated as estimates. Nonetheless they were sufficient to abstract overall tendencies and to give an insight into the main characteristics that define the sector.