In a letter entitled "Protecting our rule of law", addressed to Minister of the Interior Taina Bofferding (LSAP), opposition parties from the town council of Luxembourg City geared up their protest against private security companies patrolling the capital's streets.
Local municipal members Cathy Fayot (LSAP), Guy Foetz (Déi Lénk) and Christa Brömmel (Déi Gréng) requested minister Bofferding to suspend contracts with the private companies in question.
Since the beginning of December, security guards have been carrying out patrols around the Gare district and in the city centre. According to City Mayor Lydie Polfer, the aim of the alderman's council initiative is to "combat the feeling of urban insecurity". The opposition interprets it rather as an action "contrary to public order" but also "unconstitutional and illegal" because it is not enshrined in law.
The opposition members further argue that the surveillance mission negotiated by the City with the private company is carried out by private agents who have not been trained for this purpose and have not been sworn in, unlike forces of law and order.
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The parties also fear poor cooperation between the police and the security company: "it is to be feared that the presence of two security forces, one public and the other private, will lead to a diffuse mixture of cooperation and competition, undermining the state monopoly on the exercise of law enforcement and the confidence of citizens in the activity of the Grand-Ducal Police".
Finally, the LSAP, Déi Lénk and Déi Gréng point to a costly political manoeuvre that takes the form of a temporary solution to a fundamental problem: "This is more than a waste of public funds to finance an activity that, without contributing to solving the fundamental problem, is more like a public relations action vis-à-vis an electorate that is rightly exasperated by the drug trafficking that is becoming increasingly widespread".
The patrols are scheduled to last until the end of January 2021.
