The arm wrestling continues between the Paris City Hall and the Prefecture of Police, about the establishment of a place of crack consumption. The prefect of police intends to move users from north-eastern Paris to a railway wasteland in Bercy, which the mayor of the capital, Anne Hidalgo, is firmly opposed to. She hears “seize the European Court of Human Rights” against this project, she announced Thursday, January 27, on BFM-TV and RMC.
The Socialist Party candidate for the presidential election criticizes the prefect Didier Lallement for the “failure to take into account the safety of residents and people who live near these places of dealing and consumption”, and to treat drug addicts in a way “unworthy, which no longer has anything to do with respect for human rights”.
One hundred and fifty to two hundred crack users
In a press release released Tuesday evening, the Prefecture of Police explained that it had, at the request of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, located a place belonging to the SNCF in the 12and arrondissement, in the southeast of the city, in order to “to orient” the one hundred and fifty to two hundred crack users gathered since the end of September at Porte de La Villette, in the 19and arrondissement, in the North-East, in a square on the edge of Seine-Saint-Denis.
The prefect had already dispensed with the agreement of the town hall to transfer these drug addicts from the gardens of Eole (18and), where they had been regrouped in May in order to relieve the neighboring district of Stalingrad (19and), towards this square. The newly announced move, the third in nine months, is due to take place “after the completion of work to install a secure fence”, he specified.
Violence for local residents
The announcement aroused general opposition from elected officials, from the Paris City Hall, led by a left-wing coalition, from the town hall of Charenton-le-Pont and the Val-de-Marne department, led by the right, and even the deputy for the constituency, Laetitia Avia (La République en Marche).
The Paris City Hall requested and obtained a meeting on Tuesday with the State services involved, with it, from “plan crack”, which, between 2019 and 2022, mobilized 25 million euros instead of the 9 million initially planned. This money made it possible to house 450 drug addicts without providing a lasting solution to their wandering, which is synonymous with major nuisance and sometimes violence for local residents.