Anouan, with her peroxidized hair, claims to be 14 years old.
He was arrested in early September, in the middle of the night, in the shop of a florist in Plaisir (Yvelines), with two accomplices aged 11 and 12.
But the radiological tests carried out on his bones at the forensic institute of Garches (Hauts-de-Seine) give him 19. This is what allowed the judges of the Versailles Criminal Court to sentence him to 18 months of prison closes on September 8.
"I am flying on behalf of two Algerians who give me medicine", assured the false minor before the judges.
They are hundreds, the exact figure is impossible to determine, real minors, this time, for the most part Moroccan, to live from burglaries and robberies in Ile-de-France.
The police call these young delinquents "miners" (because they always present themselves as minors to escape prosecution).
And even bone testing is controversial.
A magistrate recognizes it: “It is true that there is a margin of error of more or less two years.
"
Placed in homes, "two minutes later, they run away"
It is a puzzle for justice and the exasperation is mounting among the victims.
If they seize only a few hundred euros most of the time, "the biggest damage consists above all in repairing the damage caused", says Alain Marcillac, referring safety of the national order of pharmacists.
On average, an invoice of 3,500 euros.
A raid that is reflected in the figures.
"For three years, their number has increased with a succession of migratory waves," said the Paris police headquarters.
In 2018, there were 7,603 arrests of unaccompanied minors in the Paris metropolitan area (Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne and Hauts-de-Seine).
In 2019, it was 9,134 arrests, an increase of 20%.
And for the first eight months of 2020, there are already the arrest of 6,309 foreign minors, or 300 more than in 2019 over the same period.
A further increase of 42%, which even reaches 51% in Paris!
At the Department of Proximity Security of the Parisian agglomeration (DSPAP), it is specified that "half of those arrested for burglaries are unaccompanied Maghreb minors".
"Sometimes, we will have a criminal response worthy of the name because the theft is accompanied by violence, and there, the legal qualification allows the prosecution to be able to request the imprisonment of minors," blows a senior officer.
Otherwise, they are placed in a home, "and two minutes later, they run away."
"A real wave throughout the region"
Since their appearance at the end of 2016, in the district of Goutte-d'Or in the north of Paris, these delinquent “miners” tended to live and steal in the capital, but since the end of 2018, their activities have spread to throughout Ile-de-France, thanks to the RER and suburban trains.
"We are undergoing a real wave over the entire region," assures Versailles prosecutor Maryvonne Caillibotte.
We favor a fairly firm penal policy by asking for incarceration in the hope that it will be dissuasive ”.
Same firm tone at the Créteil prosecutor's office: "We are uncompromising, especially when it comes to thefts with violence," assures the prosecutor.
We require warrants of committal as soon as the minors are known ”.
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Catherine Delanoë-Daoud, lawyer at the Paris bar, co-responsible for the MiE pole (unaccompanied foreign minors), further defends the idea of "fostering".
“They need support, but in Paris, we let them go on probation,” she annoys.
The young person must then come back a few days later in front of the judge, in the meantime, where does he sleep?
Well he goes back to the street and doesn't come back to the judge!
"
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“When one of these minors arrives on time for an appointment, we are happy… that's the reality, we must be satisfied”, abounds a Parisian educator.
"Their care is difficult, these young people evolve in a complicated environment, surrounded by adults who are not benevolent", confirms Serge Durand, director of child protection unaccompanied minors within the NGO France Terre Asile.
"In police custody, we have almost only them"
In the Val-de-Marne, the police note that delinquency linked to these minors is "in full explosion" in the cities near Paris.
Since the start of the year, 86 of them have been referred to the Créteil court.
Of which twenty-one just for the month of August.
"More and more, they are trying their luck further in the suburbs", analyzes a judicial source.
Even the south of the Oise is suffering an upsurge in burglaries.
But it is in the inner suburbs that raids are most frequent.
"The other day, in five minutes along the former national 7, we arrested eleven guys for three separate cases," blows a police officer from Kremlin-Bicêtre in Val-de-Marne.
“At the moment, in police custody, we have hardly any more than them,” notes a peacekeeper from Choisy-le-Roi in the same department.
Zakaria, 18, arrested in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines), is known under 63 aliases for acts committed in Paris, in Val-d'Oise, Seine-Saint-Denis and Yvelines in two years !
"Five tablets of Rivotril per day"
The common point of these delinquents, in addition to their young age, is to be already drug addicts, addicted to drugs, in particular Rivotril, an antiepileptic: Anouan, arrested at the florist of Yvelines, affirms to swallow “five tablets of Rivotril per day.
I have been taking it since I was eight years old because in Morocco my brothers used to sell it in the street, ”he says.
“This drug causes disastrous effects, deplores a police officer from Val-de-Marne.
One time, we called out some kids, they didn't understand anything because they were so stoned.
"
Behind these young street thieves hide networks of international thieves.
And, at the highest point of the state, it is the concern.
The Elysee has requested the establishment of interministerial coordination between the ministries responsible for the Police, Justice, Education, Health… on the subject of unaccompanied minors.
Florian Bachelier, deputy (LREM) of Ille-et-Vilaine, confirms: “In June 2018, there were discussions between the King of Morocco
(Editor's note: Mohammed VI)
and Emmanuel Macron.
And the president asked Jean Castex to remobilize the government;
because we can see that the networks of human trafficking are at work.
"In Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), there are" around 300 unaccompanied minors from the Maghreb, it is no coincidence, the sectors are studying the mapping of territories, Rennes is a city which has twice less police coverage than comparable municipalities ”, explains Florian Bachelier, who met with Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti on Wednesday 23 September to discuss this issue in particular.
The cities of Montpellier (Hérault) and Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) are not spared.
Sleep on the streets or in squats
“These teenagers mostly come from Morocco and Algeria,” describes an educator who visits them daily.
They go through Spain and end up in Paris.
"Like Anouan, who told his judges to have stopped in Barcelona in Spain, then in Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales), before getting on a train for Paris, where he lives in a squat under the rule of" bosses " who provide him with his precious pills in exchange for the loot collected during the thefts.
They sleep on the streets or in squats, depending on the bands that form.
All abandoned or just unoccupied dwellings are targeted.
A few weeks ago in Vitry (Val-de-Marne), the leader of a small gang of teenagers shot a gun at one of his friends.
“Sometimes, minors think they are buying their house, a lawyer from Créteil cannot believe it.
I defended one for trespassing.
He told me that he had paid 300 euros to occupy an abandoned pavilion.
A guy had given him the good plan for money.
"
"Above all, victims of human trafficking"
In Bordeaux (Gironde), a stopover town between the Maghreb and Paris, and for the first time in France, an investigation unit dedicated to this type of delinquency was created and in February dismantled a network of young burglars, run by six members of the same family, aged 30 to 50, from Algeria.
They are suspected of having exploited a group of around fifty petty thieves whom they drugged.
Emmanuelle Ajon, PS vice-president of the Gironde departmental council, mentions young people “who are above all victims of human trafficking.
For me, they are minors under the control of mafia or semi-mafia networks ”.
This case could validate the hypothesis constructed in the Paris region and which, until then, had not been able to be confirmed: the existence of organized channels which “steer” these adolescents.
But, for the moment, no Ile-de-France police service has set up a specialized cell.
Agreements have been made, for the city of Paris alone, with the Moroccan consulate for the repatriation of these young people.
The Versailles prosecutor would like to see these extended provisions, but she underlines "that these are discussions which must take place between the political representatives of the two States".
Me Catherine Delanoë-Daoud, who manages several cases of unaccompanied minors, does not "understand that in Paris, we are not able to manage these kids", well known.
"The public prosecutor's office set up, in 2019, an age determination report (Pvda)", adds the lawyer, in which appears the identity of the minor, his name, first name, his offenses, two photos in foot and face.
In addition to this "Pvda, there is the national fingerprint file which makes it possible to find the aliases", continues the lawyer.
Emmanuel Daoud, lawyer at the Paris bar, insists: "If it is a priority, we must give the police the means to cut the link between these children and the receivers, dismantle the networks and question the adults who exploit these kids.
"