Paris Police Control Undiminished Although Internal Crises Now Past

PARIS--The presence of a very large number of heavily-armed police in this capital seems to have become an institutionalized feature of the Gaullist Fifth Republic. Although there are arguments for and against the over-whelming force the government keeps in the city, the fact is that the crises which necessitated extraordinary police measures are gone, and the police are not.

Although the French government is reluctant to give precise figures about the extent of the police concentration in Paris, it appears from the number of police on the streets that the force has not declined since the height of the Algerian crisis, over a year ago. Parisians, who accepted the security precautions during the war with Algeria and the months of threatened civil war which followed, are increasingly bitter over the undiminished power of the police.

Armed With Machineguns

"The war is over now, and they still walk around that way," said a cafe proprietor on the Rue Saint Jacques, gesturing at three officers of the peace standing on the corner with submachine guns slung under their coats. "I have nothing against de Gaulle--I don't play politics--but who do they plan to shoot those things at? They should take them away."

The police are not discourteous, Parisians say, except to Algerians, whom they treat badly. Nevertheless, the control they exercise over the city is very strict. Driving through the city at night, this reporter was flagged down and subjected to four separate identity checks in the course of three hours. Police officers said the passport checks were "normal traffic and document control."

During the day there is a policeman on almost every block at the center of the city. The big avenues, especially on the right bank--the fashionable district--are lined with police. At night big blue police vans carrying between 10 and 50 policemen sit at intersections throughout the city, even in the outlying districts. All officers of the peace in the vans are armed with submachine guns or rifles, as well as revolvers and billy-sticks.

Security for de Gaulle

The explanation offered for the continued police force is that the remnants of the right-wing Secret Army Organization (OAS) constitute a threat to President Charles de Gaulle's life. Although the government now boasts that only 30 OAS terrorists are still at large in France, apologists for the police force rightly point out that one of them may succeed in killing the President.

The danger to de Gaulle's life seems to be the officially sanctioned explanation for the police forces in the city. The government has encouraged newspapers to play up the threats to the President's life, and allowed photographs of the extraordinary security measures being used to protect him to be widely published.

Pretext for Government

Although the OAS does pose a continuing threat to do Gaulle's life, several observers have noted that the assassination danger is a convenient pretext for the government. It allows the regime, they say, to maintain heavily armed forces in the capital, a control measure which under other circumstances would be subject to scathing criticism.

But de Gaulle's security does not seem to be the only reason for the massive police forces in Paris. If security precautions for the President explain the busloads of policemen at the Elysee palace, they do not explain the police opposite the University of Paris, at Place Saint Michel in the Latin Quarter, or opposite the American Express office. At these points, and in numerous other areas of Paris, the police are for control, not security.

Police a Social Force?

What frightens many French intellectuals about the police force is that it seems to have become an established part of Paris life. They fear that as police control of the city becomes institutionalized it will prove a sizable political and social force within French society. The fact that the police are not being used against the population proves very little, they say: the next French President may be a much less scrupulous man than de Gaulle. In fact, if de Gaulle is assassinated, the police will find themselves in de facto control of the city and may be influential in determining who his successor will be