Wave of Cop Suicides in France Sparks Alarm

Under their uniforms, pain is deep inside. The suicide rate among the French police has been considerably high when talking about 12 security officials committing suicide in just one month, this year, according to TRT.

Suicide among French police officers has nearly become daily news in recent months. Official authorities expressed their growing concern about the sudden spread of this phenomenon, while facing an unprecedented wave of crimes and violence, which the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin described as “the brutality of a part of French society.”

Amidst divergence in opinions about the reasons behind this phenomenon, French authorities decided to seriously seek a plan protecting security services officials from the “suicide curse.”

Why they step across what the Police Union calls the “thin blue line,” remains a question that French authorities have recently been able to answer.

 

Protectors Need Protection

The body of a policeman was discovered by his colleagues, in the interior courtyard of the police station, after throwing himself from the roof, CNEWS reported.

One week ago, at Sunday night, was the suicide of another 22-year-old policeman.

Despite being a brilliant young man, he ended his life with the help of his service gun, just five months after moving to Marseille.

During CNEWS morning show, on Saturday, January 29, presenter Isabelle Moreau said that each year, between 40 and 50 police officials commit suicide. Therefore, with 12 suicides recorded in just one month, French police seems to be grappling a real “catastrophe.”

In 2020, 32 cases of suicide were reported, but 2019 marked the all-time peak for this phenomenon, with about 59 suicides among security personnel and officials.

The way French policemen ended their lives, the media reported that the cases of suicide were through hanging, throwing themselves under the railway tracks or from high buildings, while others committed suicide with their service guns.

The phenomenon has spread to include many security and police stations in different cities in France, in addition to agents, officers, and officials.

“A previous report by the MGP confirmed that more than 24% of policemen also have suicidal thoughts, and most of them are between 30 and 34 years old,” according to TRT.

However, 2022 may record the highest suicide rates in France as 12 police officers put an end to their lives since the beginning of the year.

 

Psychological and Social Reasons

Police trade unions believe that “the anti-social nature of the job as well as the increased workloads and stress levels in part triggered by the wave of extremist violence in France have gnawed away at police officers’ mental wellbeing.”

In light of the alarming high rates of policemen suicide, many government parties assumed that the security job today is almost one of the most jobs in France, witnessing these chocking records among its employees and agents.

The phenomenon drew the attention of the French authorities to conduct investigations in order to identify the real reasons behind security forces suicide. In doing so, many reports have recently indicated that the psychological factor plays a major role, pushing French police to end their lives.

Being closer to policemen surroundings, working in bad social conditions, exacerbated by pressures imposed by the spread of Coronavirus, pushes sometimes security personnel to commit suicide.

Dealing with the analysis of this phenomenon, a recent study indicated that “the mental health of police officers is clearly related to the working conditions and the professional environment,” TRT reported.

In this context, the same source reported many security officials revealing, in their testimonies, that the recent rise in the wave of violence and crimes in France, pushed the police to deal with many violent bodies of women and children, which indirectly led to “nerve exhaustion and a feeling of despair.”

Many of them could not get over this, and therefore committed suicide.

Not to mention the recent protests in French streets, the most prominent of which were the protests of the yellow jackets that increased the tension between French citizens and the security forces.

The conflict led them into social isolation, and thus entering into depression, loneliness and despair.

However, the investigations and reports are still on the way to reveal more reasons behind the spread of police suicide.

 

Government Measures

Benoit Priat, head of the Joint Security Forces Group, said that he wants “to encourage and facilitate access to psychological counseling and preventive measures in police stations to improve the well-being of employees at work and thus their mental health,” TRT quoted.

For his part, the Director General of the National Police (DGPN), Frédéric Veau, revealed that “the government's plan will be widely implemented to fight this phenomenon.”

The plan was to delegate more guards in the services to reach 2,000 guards, mainly volunteer police officers to supervise their colleagues.

The aim was to detect any personal, financial or family difficulties facing them.

In case of a problem, they can take them to a doctor, a psychologist, or even to the head of the department.

The French Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, announced that there are twenty new positions in the psychological support service for security and policemen, according to TRT.

In a press statement to local media, Frédéric Veau announced that “the practice of sports for various ranks will be re-launched to get rid of stress and psychological pressures, so that each officer is required to practice two hours of sports per week.”

However, specialists and analysts consider that these measures are not enough to address this phenomenon, especially since the structure of psychological follow-up for security personnel is not a newly developed structure, as it was established in 1996. Over the past five years, France was recording 44 police suicide cases every year.