A cleverly prepared police operation has been underway since 4 p.m. on Tuesday at Champ-de-Mars.
A hundred agents, in uniform or in civilian clothes, landed at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
Objective: to control the merchandise and the identity of the street vendors who deploy there en masse every day, offering the 6 million tourists who parade here each year, miniature Eiffel towers, selfie sticks, key rings, magnets, flags and other souvenirs from Paris… “Food” vendors – with bottled water, beers and snacks on the menu – are also in the sights.
Just like the gamblers who rip off tourists with impunity with their tricks of goblets and dice.
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The services mobilized are therefore numerous.
Department of local security for the Paris conurbation, department of public order and traffic, the police stations of the 7th, 15th and 16th arrondissements, the river brigade in the event of an accident and leakage into the Seine, the central office for the repression of irregular immigration or the departmental directorate for the protection of populations.
This is not the first time that the police have carried out such checks.
“It is unfortunately a bottomless pit, summarizes a discouraged police officer.
We arrive, we control, we seize and they come back!
“According to a senior police official, they would be more than 200 street vendors some days to operate in this sector.
This Tuesday, the prefecture says it wants to "send a message" to them.
“The Eiffel Tower sector has deteriorated.
We want to strengthen the means and we will come back.
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