Exhausted and frightened residents, entire neighborhoods who no longer sleep, injured young people, with the hand sometimes torn off, even deaths… Each year, in certain districts of Paris, the days preceding and following July 14 offer several sleepless nights to the inhabitants, as well as around December 31 and regularly throughout the year. It is to take head-on this problem – that had told in detail 20 minutes last year – that the Paris City Hall launched a major prevention and awareness plan with the police headquarters and other partners.
These measures, which focus on information rather than repression, are intended to put an end to noise pollution on the one hand, but also to accidents and fires caused by untimely firecrackers. Last year, they triggered a fire in a nursing home. And the year before, they had entered a square where children were playing. Each year, around twenty injuries are due to these devices, with a peak around July 14, reports the Paris City Hall. More than half of the victims are under 30 years old.
Flyers and video
Enough to mobilize the security assistant, Nicolas Nordman, who gathered around a table for several months the police headquarters, the fire brigade, national education and the Parisian Inter-donor Surveillance Group ( GPIS) in particular. “The idea of this plan is to be able to coordinate a certain number of actors who had actions in a scattered way”, explains the elected official.
Stakeholders will train municipal police officers, the city’s mediation service, parks and gardens staff and even specialized educators tomorrow. Among the training pool, we find the police headquarters, but also a firefighter or a pediatric surgeon from the Robert Debré hospital. Sessions will follow in schools in certain establishments designated by the town halls, in the 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements, where the problem exists. A video was produced by the firefighters for these sessions, while flyers were printed so that they could be distributed in the streets to young people.
Systematic excavations
In a second phase, from the beginning of July, municipal police officers and city mediators will visit businesses that sell firecrackers to remind them of the existence of an order prohibiting the acquisition and possession of pyrotechnic articles and fireworks during the period covering the National Day.
And new, parks and gardens staff will be asked to carry out excavations to find the equipment stashed on site by mortar enthusiasts, just like the GPIS in the buildings. If until then these agents could report what they were led to find by chance, they will now be called upon to flush out the material more actively, explains Nicolas Nordman: “We want to do it more systematically”.
“Long-term action”
The third phase around July 14 will see a stronger mobilization of all these actors and actresses of the subject, with a repressive component, even if for the security assistant, the idea is to avoid in the long term that firecrackers do not be drawn outside any frame. “Many of the people who use these firecrackers are young and do not have knowledge of the risks for themselves and the criminal risks”, advances the deputy, who emphasizes prevention.
“It’s a long-term action”, explains Nicolas Nordman, while the sessions for schoolchildren will not really be set up everywhere until next year, given the fact that the school year is already almost finished. And to move forward, optimistic: “There will be effects perhaps not this summer, we are aware of that. But we want results. »