In April 2026, more than half of the 17 municipal police officers from Villeneuve-Saint-Georges (Val-de-Marne) were arrested for charges including violence, theft, and vandalism following a series of complaints, including one from a man who claimed he was gassed, beaten, and targeted with electric shock pistols in the toilets of a bar. The trial of seven of them was referred to December. In July 2026, fatal shots by a municipal police officer from Pontet (Vaucluse) concluded a refusal to comply. In August, a chase led by teams from the municipal police of Margny-lès-Compiègne (Oise) resulted in the death of the driver being chased, with conditions that scandalized his family and the traveling community. At the beginning of September 2026, a video capturing racist and degrading remarks by a municipal police officer from Carcassonne (Aude) and the reactions of his colleagues around him was released. These events have reactivated discussions about the modes of intervention and the relationship with the public of municipal police agents, raising questions about whether notable differences exist vis-à-vis the state forces regarding the use of lethal force, discriminatory speech and practices, and conflictual relationships with the public. The law of February 28, 2017 on public safety extended the definition of self-defense, authorizing national police officers, gendarmes, and municipal police officers equipped with firearms to shoot at a fleeing vehicle, on the grounds that it could represent a future danger to the agents or to others. This law increased the number of fatal shots by national police officers on vehicles, multiplied by five during the period 2017-2022 compared to the period 2011-2016. While the lowest number of shots recorded in municipal police does not allow for the same statistical work, events mentioned suggest that it is also affected by an increase in the lethality of its interventions. Municipal police officers were freer to assess the relevance of a chase compared to national police, who had instructions until the summer of 2025 not to chase vehicles except in serious cases. This regulatory vacuum created a difference between police forces, which could have led to a division of labor in which the national police left the municipal police to "hunt" fleeing vehicles in cases of minor offenses. Local instructions from municipal police headquarters and elected officials influence the practices of the municipal police, as agents must decide between the use of a chase or the transmission of information to the state forces for a delayed arrest. These choices depend on the doctrine of use defined at the local level. Instructions for the mass use of checks or quasi-identity checks of populations considered undesirable or of businesses perceived as recalcitrant, as well as those given in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, frame the actions of the agents. The existence of night shifts is one of the factors that encourage municipal police officers to invest more in the repression of crime, orienting the agents toward a more conflictual relationship with a public considered, during these hours, as more easily suspect. The equipment of the police officers plays a role in defining the modes of intervention of the municipal police. Whether the municipal police officers are equipped with weapons or not shapes the types of missions they take on, as well as drastically changing the probabilities of fatal outcomes in chases. The lethality linked to restraint techniques, non-lethal weapons, or even possible cases of "bump" or impact techniques in chases is also a concern. Political decisions also participate in defining the municipal police officers attracted by the service, with working hours, the possible existence of intervention or proximity units, the availability of firearms, and the diversity of the non-lethal arsenal available being indicators on which the agents base their choice of where to apply and where to stay. Facing the strong tensions that exist on the municipal police market, the communes often recruit agents benefiting from "bridges" from other security forces. These recruitments have effects on the professional practices of the agents, with supervisory staff regularly expressing fears of seeing imported practices, notably from the national police. The observation in several municipal police departments in large cities indicates that the passage through the military tends to produce municipal police officers more interested in conflictual interventions with the population.