Le Figaro Lyon
The prostitutes in Lyon want to return to Gerland. Two weeks after their evacuation from the plain of the Games, three associations that defend them announced, Wednesday, to have filed an appeal for interim relief with the administrative court of Lyon. The action targets the prefectural decree prohibiting the parking of their vans in about twenty streets in the south of the 7th arrondissement. A decision taken after months of controversy while the parents of children enrolled in sports clubs in the immediate vicinity denounced the presence of prostitutes and their customers. The ecologist municipality having frozen the anti-parking orders taken by its predecessors, it had erected a palisade to hide the activities and returned the ball to the services of the state on the police side.
The lawyer of the Red Umbrella Federation, which brings the appeal, Elie Weiss, believes in particular that the "real purpose pursued by the prefecture is to oust sex workers from the plain of Gerland in anticipation of the Rugby World Cup, in order to improve its international image". Consequently, it highlights the "disproportionate period" to which the decree relates, from the beginning of May to the end of October, while the competition only runs on the month of October. If no match will be played in Gerland, the New Zealand All Blacks team, followed by cameras around the world, will establish its base camp in the facilities of the Lou rugby club.
Rugby World Cup, really?
The issue of the Rugby World Cup was raised at the April meeting in the prefecture with associations for the defence of women workers, the last one. But in her decree, the prefect, Fabienne Buccio, had above all highlighted issues of safety and public health. "For several months, prostitution activities have been generating disturbances to public tranquility linked to the multiplication of acts of violence (theft, extortion, threats) and the deterioration of sanitary conditions by the multiplication of abandoned waste (used syringes and condoms) in the immediate vicinity of sports facilities frequented in particular by young children," she said.
A health argument referred to the services of the State by the administrative appeal which mentions the difficulty of access to care and screening of prostitutes since the evacuation, which occurred the day after the order. It also highlights "discrimination" against sex workers and an infringement of their fundamental right and freedom of movement. "Between 100 and 300 women in Gerland sleep in their van and risk in addition to being precarious, to be deprived of their housing, mention the associations, including the Lyonnais of Cabiria who accompany prostitutes for many years and make the link with the prefecture. It is therefore not an eviction from a prostitution district, but an eviction from housing, by the dozens, without solutions and without notice. And to evoke the "catastrophic financial consequences" of this evacuation.
The eviction took place on May 4, the day after the publication of the anti-parking order while the rumor of such an outcome had been rumbling since the last prefectural meeting, a month earlier. As Le Figaro recently reported, repeated police patrols had already put pressure on their activity. Little applied in normal times, the law of penalization of customers had also been used several times since the beginning of the year to fine some of them.