SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC SECURITY

France's policy in matters of public security is based on the followin g elements: the government (public and military police force, public p rosecutor's office, prefecture) firmly placed at the centre, a subordi nation to the imperatives of law and order, the primacy of repression, an extreme variability in the priorities for petty and middle crime, etc. The article explains how and why this type of policy came to exis t. It is mainly the result of a day-to-day, on-the-job development of the interdependence of rights between the various actors when dealing with public security issues; in some cases leading to certain modes of cooperation, but not in all. The method adopted to analyse the observ ations collected during a survey in three departments in France was th at of systemic analysis of collective action (confronted with what is known as institutional analysis). First, it makes clear the narrow mar gin which the heads of public service currently have in order to impos e national, homogeneous priorities. Secondly, it shows the lack of dev elopment of the supposed partnerships and their tendency towards preve ntion or non-judicial handling of problems.