They wander, like ghostly and staggering shadows. Creep in the mud in search of a crack "pebble", try to extort a little change from those who cross their path, chanting inaudible sentences.
A day like the others, Porte d'Aubervilliers, on the borders of the 18th and 19th arrondissements. And yet, this Tuesday morning, the evacuation of the gigantic "slum of shame" was organized, the 60th since 2015, demanded for months by elected officials, residents and associations. Nearly 2,000 migrants, mixed with dozens of drug addicts, expelled last November from the sinister "crack hill" of the Porte de la Chapelle (18th century).
There, along the ring road, these two worlds coexisted for long weeks, in tents and makeshift barracks. In the mud, insalubrity and violence. Death also: two men died there, in December and this month.
A dangerous place
“You can't imagine how dirty it is. There are rats everywhere and people are fighting, sighs a young Sudanese man, in a hurry to get into one of the forty cars that will take him, he hopes, to a better life. Here, there are a lot of drug addicts, it's very dangerous. "
Crackers, "a wound", relentlessly denounced by a breathless neighborhood. This Tuesday, the inhabitants, some of whom are grouped within the ONJM collective (You are never better served than by yourself) took to the streets to challenge elected officials and public authorities, as they did during evenings , by slowing down the tram, by organizing marauders to get drug addicts out of the halls of their buildings.
Terrorized children and mothers
“The Charles-Hermite school where my 3 and a half year old son is schooled, overlooks this daily spectacle, a mother rebels. They are walking half naked, defecating on the sidewalk ”. "The mothers are afraid, and even prepare 5 euros, the price of their dose of crack, to have peace and not to risk endangering their children", indignant a 60-year-old Alain Bardet, who has been living since 14 years boulevard Ney.
Here, everyone has their anecdote: a burnt car, an assault by a drug addict in need "and even the children who make frightening reflections, points out a mother: " You, you are going to smoke crack with the bad guys, near school " . "
Anne Hidalgo questioned by residents
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, who has come to assure the inhabitants of her support, has also paid the price for the anger of the residents who promise “to let nothing pass by”. Continued until on the way back: " The flight ahead!" Madam Mayor! ". " In two days, we will find them on our streets!" ".
Because, Porte d'Aubervilliers, no one has forgotten the twenty evacuations from the "hill" ... and the systematic return to the sidewalks of its occupants.
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"I call to systemize the exit devices from the streets for these burn victims of crack which are time bombs in the middle of our cities", exclaimed François Dagnaud, the mayor (PS) of the 19th century.
42 drug addicts specially cared for
"It is true that this type of eviction is never ideal," admits Anne Souyris, Anne Hidalgo's assistant (EELV) to Health. But this time, 42 drug addicts joined a residential circuit, with psychological and health support on Tuesday, and twenty-two others had done so the day before. But of course, we risk losing those who have not accepted aid, and finding them on the street… ”And new ones in contact with migrants, who are still numerous in the north-east of Paris. "It is far from the end of the camps," deplores François Dagnaud (PS), the mayor of the 19th century. Right next door, there are still nearly 400 makeshift tents on the quays of the Saint-Denis canal, plus a hundred Porte de la Villette, waiting to be picked up. There is an urgent need to act to end the hellish cycle. And if nothing changes in the conditions of reception and management of the administrative situation of exiles, the same things will produce the same effects ”.
1,436 migrants sheltered
This Tuesday morning, the prefecture proceeded to a new evacuation of migrants but this time Porte d'Aubervilliers (XVIIIth - XIXth). After having made a shelter in early November Porte de la Chapelle, it was a question of doing the same a few hundred meters further. Thus, 1,436 people (1,187 single men and 249 family members) were taken care of by the State services and their partners. Each of the persons concerned has been offered a temporary accommodation solution in Île-de-France and will be able to benefit from a social, health and administrative diagnosis.
