Their management refused their working time reform. In response, around fifty police officers from Sète and Agde are on sick leave for burnout or depression.
In Sète and Agde (Hérault), the police are in the process of disappearing. The police stations of these two towns have been emptied since the beginning of the week. In Sète, nearly 90% of the emergency police force stopped working, ie around thirty police officers. A phenomenon which is spreading in Agde. In total, around fifty police officers are on sick leave for “depression” and “professional exhaustion”.
“It is very sad to come to this, notes Stéphane Navarro of the SGP POLICE-FO Unit union in a press release. What do the authorities need to understand the exasperation of the police? That contagion wins Béziers, tomorrow, then Montpellier following? “
At the origin of this protest movement, the pace and working conditions which exhaust the police. Asked by France Info, a Sète civil servant describes his daily life: “Reminders about leave, overtime that is not paid … We are just in time, we are constantly in demand. (…) We give our all in our work and in return, we just ask for better conditions ”.
Arm wrestling with management
Supported by the unions, the police demanded, at the end of January, a new organization of work to allow them to spend more time with family. This proposal provided for a weekend off every two weeks against one every 6 weeks now. But the departmental police directorate refused this reform. “We are not heard and we feel completely abandoned. We are not here to fight against our hierarchy, we just want them to hear us and give us the means to be able to work ”, regrets the policeman at the microphone of France Info.
For its part, the unions warn that the anger is far from appeased. “Their privacy and their rest time must be respected and arranged as had been decided,” said Stéphane Navarro. All have been betrayed and there is a good chance that this movement will spread oil because the police are at their wit’s end ”.
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