After the Berlin Wall, "we have the Pantin wall", quipped Mathilda not without bitterness, observing the pile of concrete blocks blocking the Forceval tunnel located under the ring road.
A resident of Aubervilliers, she used to take this axis connecting Pantin to Paris.
However, since Friday, the prefecture has concreted the passage.
A measure taken in the wake of the evacuation of crack users to Porte de Villette, in order to "protect" residents of Pantin and Aubervilliers from possible attacks.
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“In our neighborhood, it is the only thoroughfare for pedestrians and cyclists to Paris,” insists Chinh, an artist from Pantinese whose studio is located just outside the tunnel. According to him, the prefectural decision amounts to cutting "human circulation, instead of helping people fallen into drugs". "It is a policy of relief that is necessary", adds Marie-Hélène, 79 years old, who accuses the government of confining itself to applying "a policy of displacement" of the users of crack.
"When we are not able to build closed centers or therapeutic villages to treat drug addicts, (...) it means that the State is overwhelmed by the crack crisis", reacts Tarak Sassi, exasperated at the sight of Wall.
Member of the Paris anti crack collective, he castigates "a measure of social discrimination" which aims to move "this scourge towards Seine-Saint-Denis" and its impoverished population.
For him, the capital has become the “stronghold of crack in Europe”, a sort of “Detroit sur Seine”.