The pressure is still going up a notch between the town hall of Paris and the police headquarters, about the city's crack addicts.
On Friday January 28, the Prefect of Police Didier Lallement announced that he was giving up moving consumers currently living in the 19th arrondissement, near the gates of Pantin and Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis).
Read alsoIn Paris, prefect and town hall tear themselves apart on “crackland”
"
The Prefect of Police takes note of the virulent opposition of the mayor of Paris to any project to move crack users out of Place Auguste Baron, going so far as to consider legal action against him
", begins the press release. .
A reference to the threats and protests of the town hall of Paris, which have not weakened since the mention of a transfer to the 12th arrondissement.
A few days earlier, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had indeed asked the prefecture to look for a place that was not on the public highway.
An SNCF site had been selected near the Porte de Charenton.
The first deputy of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, had criticized a location “
too far from the historic site
[of drug addicts]
, place Stalingrad
", estimating that the latter would not stay there.
Anne Hidalgo even announced Thursday "
to seize the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
" on the subject.
Under these conditions, the Prefect "
can only note [the] impediment by the City to carry out the evacuation to the site of the 12th arrondissement or to any other site, the town hall having refused to make the slightest proposal
", continues the prefecture .
The Prefect of Police Didier Lallement denounces the consequences for the inhabitants of the 19th arrondissement, who "
must now expect a long occupation of the public space of the square because it is an illusion to try to make them believe that solutions fast and simple are possible to allow these people to be treated and reintegrated
”.
A direct criticism of municipal inaction on the subject of crack.
Read alsoParisians demand “new methods” against crack in Paris
The prefecture "refuses that a slum is built there"
The Prefect "
will continue to ask the City of Paris to clean this square of debris accumulated and transformed into huts, even if it means requisitioning
it again", as was the case on Monday January 24, when the prefecture cleaned up the premises. .
“
He refuses, in fact, that a shantytown be built in this place, masking the traffic from the view of the police,
” continues the text, which cites the results in the fight against dealers, with 388 arrests for trafficking in 2021, and 419 people arrested for use.
