Black jogging pants and hood are the equivalent of work overalls for them.
While children their age are at school, they walk in circles between two squares in the Clos-des-Roses district, in Compiègne (Oise), waiting for the customer.
They are 9 to 13 years old, already with a joint in their mouth and bags of heroin or crack in their pockets to sell at the drug dealers.
These “little ones” with their poisoned youth are watched over by “big ones” aged 16 or 17, who supply them with drugs and collect the money.
At the top of this pyramid, at a distance, the “real” traffickers provide food and shelter.
They know that these minors do not risk prison, not before 14 years.
At worst, a few hours at the police station before returning to the street.
Bingo, labor is guaranteed for a while.
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This reality of the imperial city, which we find in other cities of Île-de-France and Oise.
“It’s a phenomenon that we spotted about three years ago,” comments Marie-Céline Lawrysz, former Compiègne public prosecutor, now advisor to Éric Dupond-Moretti, the Minister of Justice.
The police saw these 9 or 10 year old kids, they told me:
We spotted babies.
Children who carried trash cans taller than them to block streets.
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