Faced with the opposition of the mayor of Paris, the prefect of police of Paris indicated that he had given up on the movement of crack users from the north-east of Paris.
The Paris police chief, who had indicated on Tuesday that he wanted to move crack users from north-eastern Paris to a railway wasteland in Bercy, announced on Friday the abandonment of the project in the face of opposition from the Paris town hall.
The soap opera around the treatment of a few hundred users of this smokable, cheap and very addictive derivative of cocaine present in the northeast of the capital had been stopped since September: it had several episodes in a few days, concluded by an about-face from the police headquarters on Friday, accused of “gross manipulation” by the town hall of Paris
In a press release, the prefect Didier Lallement “takes note of the virulent opposition of the mayor of Paris to any project to move crack users” and “can only note its impediment”, whether “to the site of the 12th arrondissement or to any other site”, regretting that “the town hall (has) refused to make the slightest proposal”.
A third trip in nine months
At the end of September, the prefect had nevertheless dispensed with the agreement of the town hall to move these drug addicts from the Jardins d’Eole (18th century), where they had been grouped together in May in order to relieve the neighboring district of Stalingrad (19th century), towards a small square Porte de La Villette, still in the northeast, on the edge of the Seine-Saint-Denis.
But this time, the intention displayed on Tuesday evening of a third move in nine months to an SNCF plot, “after the completion of work to lay a secure fence”, aroused general opposition from elected officials in Paris. and Val-de-Marne, left and right.
The town halls of Paris and Charenton-le-Pont, bordering the site, announced on Wednesday that they were studying legal remedies.
– “Politician coup” –
The abandonment of the project was therefore “inevitable given the incongruity” of the project and these oppositions, reacted, contacted by AFP, the first deputy (PS) of the mayor Anne Hidalgo, Emmanuel Grégoire, who ” is delighted with this decision” but denounces a “big manipulation” on the part of the police headquarters.
It is a “political blow to return the ball to our camp by proposing the worst”, underlined to AFP the assistant (EELV) for health Anne Souyris, reproaching the government for its “bad faith”.
Because the residents of the Porte de La Villette, whom the prefect wanted to “relieve”, must “now expect a long occupation of the public space of the square”, underlines the prefecture for whom “it is an illusion of try to make them believe that quick and simple solutions are possible to allow these people to heal and reintegrate”.
From security, the debate thus returns to the health field, with the meeting scheduled for Tuesday between the actors of the crack plan – State and City – which, between 2019 and 2022, mobilized 25 million euros instead of the nine million initially planned.
This money made it possible to house 450 drug addicts without providing a lasting solution to their wandering, which is synonymous with major nuisance and sometimes violence for local residents.
– Back to discussions on Tuesday –
Convened by the regional prefecture (Prif), this steering committee must bring the town hall, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) and the police prefecture back to the discussion table with the aim, hopes Emmanuel Grégoire, of “finding urgently a solution for the square Forceval”.
Anne Souyris therefore hopes that the “manipulation” of which she accuses the prefect will ultimately give a “boost for the revival of the crack plan”, in particular on accommodation and “issues of support, places of care and rest .”
Enough to relaunch the subject of addiction treatment centers (HSA), the new name for lower-risk consumption rooms (SCMR), nicknamed “shooting rooms” by their opponents, of which the prefect is a part in a personal capacity?
“We need HSAs quickly,” said Ms. Souyris, who said on Wednesday that she was waiting for the government decree extending their experimentation to make proposals.
More cautious on this very sensitive subject, Mr. Grégoire, puts forward the track of “hospital rights of way” and underlines to AFP that the Bercy project had the merit of opening “a track” on the grounds of the State.
“The only solution is to dismantle Forceval and requisition vacant establishments in hospitals”, added the PS mayor of the 19th arrondissement François Dagnaud.
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