Peur sur la ville. La sécurité numérique pour l'espace urbain en France

In Nice, Marseilles, Saint-Etienne and Valenciennes, "safe city" projects – the securitized version of “smart cities” – are currently under development. In addition to "smart" CCTV, where algorithms enable to detect crowd movements, violence and intrusion, so-called "hypervision" platforms link the analysis of diverse local and national files with online big data in order to prevent crime. Who participates in this rise of "safe cities"? What are the effects on cities and their inhabitants of this way of measuring risks and preventing them – or perhaps, of the instrumentalizing of these risks? I look here at the development of digital urban security systems in France. The first part focuses on the construction of the digital security market for urban spaces, placing it in the context of transformations in the private security market and the development of an industrial security policy, in which the security of major events (such as the Olympic games) plays a central role. The second part looks back at experiments with digital security projects in metropolises in France, shedding light on the different approaches to urban security, depending on the sector in which private firms operate. Finally, the third part analyzes the specifically urban issues involved in the use of these devices, by looking at how they influence the planning and everyday inhabiting of public urban spaces and by distinguishing which spaces are targeted in priority.