It’s been almost a year since 20 minutes published an article explaining why there would probably never be a shooting room in Lille. The project, carried by the town hall of Lille, had been put in the way by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who had clearly come out against it. But on Monday, the socialist mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, wrote to the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, to reiterate her wish to see a lower-risk consumption room (SCMR) open in her city.
In her letter, Martine Aubry asks the Prime Minister that “the political reasons which have blocked the Lille file be erased”, so that she can “carry out a new examination” of the SCMR project, “in the name of the public health and drug control”. She recalls that in June 2021, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had personally committed to authorizing this shooting room project, but that, at the same time, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had made it known publicly disagree with the project.
“In this case, it is only necessary to apply the law”
The file was tied up and the location defined: at 54 boulevard de Metz, one of the hot spots for drug trafficking and consumption in Lille. But it is this same district which had been targeted by the Minister of the Interior to be a “witness district” of the government’s fight against narcotics. Discussions with the offices of the Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister Jean Castex had then not made it possible to find another location, the new hypotheses not corresponding to the specifications, according to Martine Aubry.
The Prime Minister had then “put to sleep” the project in October 2021, the same day when the extension for five years of the experimentation of these rooms was ratified and their introduction within the centers of addictology, as it is the case for the Lille project, points out Martine Aubry.
“I can understand that a minister is opposed to the principle of SCMR, but in this case it is only necessary to apply the law and this all the more urgently as we face an upsurge in the consumption of crack”, writes the mayor.