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France OKs police drones in drug dealing surveillance mission

The slowly expanding use of drones by police forces in France for surveillance purposes continued its modest advance this week with the deployment of UAVs over the southwest city of Toulouse, where a neighborhood notorious for open-air drug dealing is now being monitored from on high.

Police began flying drones over the Jeanne-d’Arc neighborhood in northwest Toulouse on Monday after authorization for the deployment was given – very discreetly – by the region’s authorities. Though continuing opposition to the use of UAVs by law enforcement for surveillance remains strong in France, officials said gaining aerial perspectives would permit frequently thwarted “police operations regularly carried out” in the area to more effectively identify and pinpoint dealers in action, and permit cops to surround them before they flee.

The move comes after residents and businesses in Jeanne-d’Arc increased their complaints about the open, untrammeled sale of narcotics, pilfered prescription medicines, and even contraband cigarettes in the quarter – creating an atmosphere of lawlessness and violence in the heart of one of France’s largest cities. 

The newly authorized use of drones by police in Toulouse will monitor activity in the neighborhood and provide officers with the wide-angle situational awareness they’ll need to move in and bust dealers. Up until now, the highly mobile perpetrators have often escaped after accomplices regularly monitoring the perimeters of Jeanne-d’Arc tipped them off to arriving cops.

With UAVs aloft, it is hoped, those pushers may run but won’t be able to hide.

As is the case in many countries, France has generated civil liberty and privacy objections to making drones a regular feature of police activity. 

The nation’s conservative government only succeeded in passing a law authorizing UAV deployment by law enforcement agencies last year, following a protracted legal battle waged on privacy grounds. That tussle sprang from the police having used UAVs to detect people violating the duration and frequency limitations of outings permitted during COVID-19 lockdowns – surveillance operations judged incompatible with France’s privacy and data collection statutes. 

The government eventually passed legislation that avoided falling afoul of those rules, but officials in France who are still mindful of continued public opposition have been very careful and discreet in ordering police deployment of drones

In addition to doing so to keep watch for trouble at high-risk soccer matches in Paris, UAVs were also deployed earlier this year to inform cops of activity in hot spots during rioting around the country. The craft were also repeatedly but subtly flown in security missions during matches in the recent France-hosted World Cup of Rugby.

This week’s drone deployment in Toulouse has been similarly low profile, with the quietly announced operation only approved for a short, three-day period – and even then, only between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Flights are being strictly limited, meanwhile, to the confines of the small Jeanne-d’Arc area.

Image: Karl Greif/Unsplash

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Author

Avatar for Bruce Crumley Bruce Crumley

Bruce Crumley is journalist and writer who has worked for Fortune, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, The Guardian, AFP, and was Paris correspondent and bureau chief for Time magazine specializing in political and terrorism reporting. He splits his time between Paris and Biarritz, and is the author of novel Maika‘i Stink Eye.

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