Perched on the heights of the Plateau de la Duchère, it overlooks the city of Lyon in an imposing way, like a concrete monster. The Sakharov bar is the last survivor of a set of “big buildings” built in the 1960s to respond to the housing crisis. A construction that can be summed up as follows: a massive block worn by time that stretches over 160 meters in length and fifteen floors that seek to touch the sky. The 332 accommodations, once symbols of modernity, have become veritable thermal sieves. The corridors and alleys are invaded by drug traffickers.
If some would have liked to see the bar disappear from the landscape, the city of Lyon has chosen to rehabilitate it. For the second time. Twenty million euros will, this time, be put on the table. The objective is twofold: to improve the comfort of the residents and to drive out the dealers. Ten months after the deadly shooting that broke out at the foot of the building, construction has just started. It already looks titanic. It will be a question of isolating all the apartments, of building new elevators. But not only.
Passageways closed
The three “miradors”, balconies attached to the facade of the building serving as watchtowers, will be removed and the passageways condemned. An entrance hall will be built for each of the ten aisles located on Sakharov Street. On the other side, the “gallery”, a passage area with letterboxes, will be transformed into thirteen new apartments overlooking the park. A nice program which however worries Adqim.
Leaning on his cane, the septuagenarian with a well-trimmed white beard and wearing an elegant felt hat, pulls his shopping cart filled with commissions. “Rehabilitation is a good thing because the walls aren’t thick and you can hear everything from the neighbours, even when they put a glass of water on the table. But after the work, they’re going to raise our rent, he dreads, clutching his four loaves of bread. I can’t leave. And to go where? His friend, with whom he cuts the piece of fat, agrees. “I arrived from Algeria in 1962 to land directly at La Duchère. Here, we have the sun, the fresh air, he slips his eyes raised to the sky. I don’t want to live anywhere else. »
The clock is ticking. The old man has to go to an appointment, he says, closing his beige raincoat, while Raphaël Michaud, president of the SACVL [propriétaire de l’immeuble] wants to be reassuring. “There will be no rent increase after construction. And the charges will drop thanks to the reductions in energy consumption,” he promises.
“Are we going to end up flambéed like skewers? »
The renovation, “it’s good”, soberly comments a resident who preferred to remain anonymous. His mother has lived in the building “for fifty years”. Him for ten years. “It’s good because it will limit the existing traffic that annoys everyone on a daily basis,” he bounces in a low voice. “Here, anyone can enter. It comes here or there. The doors are badly closed”, shows Alagoz who apologizes for his approximate French.
“We are good at La Duchère, there is greenery but what is wrong is delinquency”, supports Rachida in turn, met at the foot of her driveway. The situation, she says, has deteriorated since traffickers broke into vacant homes. “Now it’s burglaries at three o’clock in the afternoon, the Kalashnikov going off, mortar fire, sometimes in the middle of the day, sums up the elegant retiree. But where did you see that? How far are we going to go? Are we going to end up flambé like skewers? »
“The traffickers are not from here,” assures his neighbor Espérance, 76 years old. She was robbed in the middle of the afternoon, the time of a race. Sometimes she sees “the big guys” walking down the aisles. “They watch everything that happens, they monitor,” she says with a strong Spanish accent. Other times, they ring on his intercom “at two or three in the morning”. “But I don’t open, I’m scared,” she confides with a shy smile. However, she says she loves the Duchère, “its gardens”, and “the beautiful view” which it has enjoyed for forty years. So, she hopes that the rehabilitation “will bring calm”. Just like Alagoz who predicts that the announced change will be “better for everyone”.
An “unrelenting” fight against drug trafficking
Rachida remains much more skeptical: “A coat of paint and beautiful windows, I don’t know if that’s what will solve the problem. I hope… But I don’t believe it. “Today, the retiree does not take off. “I had already warned the SACVL that if the traffickers settled down, we would no longer be able to get them to leave. And it was going to end badly. But they don’t listen,” she sighs.
On the side of the lessor, however, we ensure that we do what is necessary. “This building was designed as a mousetrap. On a daily basis, it is difficult to guarantee the safety of the inhabitants. This is why it was necessary to intervene and rehabilitate the premises,” replies Raphaël Michaud.
Fabienne Buccio, prefect of the Rhône, is however aware that this will not solve all the problems. “The fight against drug trafficking is a constant fight,” she says. Traffickers constantly readapt to find new deal points. But if we don’t work on the building, on the social actions that can be carried out, if we don’t rely on the actors of the district, it doesn’t make sense. »