In Britain, according to Sky News, the average person is filmed by a security camera up to 300 times a day. France, for the moment, is a rather less Big Brotherly society but it's well on the way to giving us walk-on parts in a permanent and comprehensive filming of our public lives. At the moment there are around half a million cameras set up in streets and stores, buses and trains and elsewhere. Over 3000 municipalities are now keeping an eye on their populations and, so says Jean Hanot at City Hall in Nice, the capital of the Côte d'Azur "gives an example to all of France".

Opinions, of course, are divided on the desirability of this massive exercise in people-watching. Nicolas Sarkozy is an unqualified enthusiast and thinks the more cameras the better; knee-jerk libertarians are totally hostile. Those in favour have some convincing arguments. The 7/7 bombers in London, for example, were identified from security camera tapes. Again, it can be suggested that the presence of a camera will at once deter a bad guy from offending and make his potential victims feel more secure. On the other hand, although Jean Hanot in Nice has claimed that street crime has fallen since cameras were first installed in 2003, one of the few really systematic studies of their effect - in the greater Paris area - concluded that there had been a fall in theft of property and vandalism but assaults on people had not declined. It has to be remembered, too, that a really reliable system is expensive both to instal and to maintain.

From Riviera Reporter 124, Dec 2007/Jan 2008

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