Perpignan’s Police Push: A City‑Wide Security Experiment

Perpignan, a town of about 122 000 people on France’s southern border, is putting its streets under close watch. The mayor, a member of the far‑right party, wants to keep his job by promising more cops and cameras. He says the city has become a testing ground for his party’s ideas on safety. The mayor is in a tight race with several challengers, but he still leads the polls. His record shows the police force grew from 161 officers in 2020 to almost 200 today. He plans to add fifty more officers and two hundred new cameras, especially in the poorer suburbs. The city’s crime data reflect this focus. Drug‑related arrests have risen sharply, and the town now ranks among the top ten for such cases in large French cities. Even minor drug possession fines have jumped four times since last year. But security costs are high. Perpignan’s debt per resident is above the national average for cities of similar size.Property taxes are higher than in most peers, and local business taxes lag behind many other towns. Despite the financial strain, a national magazine named Perpignan one of France’s best‑run cities last week. The mayor uses this praise to argue that good governance can coexist with a tough‑on‑crime stance. Residents have mixed feelings. Some welcome cleaner streets and visible police, while others worry that poverty in certain areas needs deeper fixes. A few voters say the mayor’s legal troubles could cost him his seat if a court overturns a conviction. Opponents accuse the mayor of spending too much on image and not enough on real progress for ordinary people. They claim the city’s finances have slipped while security measures dominate the agenda. The mayor counters that citizens judge him by how safe they feel in their neighbourhoods, not by abstract policy debates. He says the party will restore order after years of perceived chaos on both sides of politics.