“It is also up to the State to take charge of drug addicts. “ In an interview with Figaro, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, denounced Saturday, May 22, the “Short-term policy” of the State to fight against the use of crack in the capital.
The public authorities decided, Monday, May 17, to temporarily regroup drug addicts in the Eole Gardens, a public park on the 18the arrondissement of the capital now open at night, in an attempt to limit nuisance. This decision follows the rise in tensions and the exasperation of residents at the omnipresence of crack smokers in the Stalingrad district, some 500 meters from the Eole Gardens.
The elected socialist, who believes that “The battle against drug trafficking is the role of the state”, said to himself ” very angry “ and judge that he “It is not acceptable for the state to let the situation deteriorate”. She claims “A drug plan worthy of the name”.
The mayor “refuses to wear the hat”
“I cannot be satisfied with this short-term policy, which consists in transferring the problem from one district to another”, explains Mme Hidalgo, who refuses to “Wear the hat” of this situation and calls into question “The prefect of police”, which, according to her, presents this strategy as ” the only solution “.
The government and the Town Hall have been discussing since February the best way to improve the situation in the Stalingrad district, whose inhabitants can no longer bear to meet drug addicts and drug addicts in need, to be confronted with aggressive begging, and not to no longer able to sleep because of the noise at night. Everything accelerated after the night of April 30 to 1er May, during which fireworks mortars were fired in the direction of drug addicts gathered under the windows of the inhabitants of 15, avenue de Flandre.
On Wednesday 19, more than a hundred residents of the Eole gardens protested against the decision of the public authorities to concentrate in the park, day and night, these users of crack. “Give us back our park”, “The Eole park for our children”, could we read on the signs hanging on the gates of the public garden at 18e borough.
Faced with the scale of the traffic, which plagues the north-east of the capital, the progress made under the crack plan, which has mainly made it possible to accommodate 400 people since 2019, “Are ridiculous”, jeers at the mayor. She regrets not having “No answer to [ses] alerts from the regional prefecture and the regional health agency ”, partner institutions of the City within the framework of this plan.