for associations, bringing consumers together in a park amounts to “pushing them into the interstices of the city”

Since May 17, CRS trucks have been clearly visible on the Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad, in the 19^e arrondissement of Paris, between the reopened terraces, the cinemas and the La Villette basin. Their objective: to saturate the public space and repel consumers of crack, a very addictive mixture of cocaine and ammonia, who had gathered in this place for several years, more and more visible with the successive confinements.

So that Stalingrad is no longer “The European crack sanctuary”, in the words of the mayor of the arrondissement, François Dagnaud, the open scene of drug consumption, and all that it implies – crack smokers, sellers of “cakes” at 15 euros, the medico-social consequences that ‘it causes and the nuisances it generates – was pushed back 500 meters away. The Eole Gardens, a public park in the 18^e arrondissement, will be supposed to contain it in a limited space and hours – from 7:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. – so, according to Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy at the City of Paris, of “Better care on the medico-social level” addicts and keep them away, because “The situation had become unbearable for the residents of Stalingrad”.

Very quickly, a certain political confusion appeared behind this decision. At first, Mr. Grégoire announced that the evacuation and the temporary choice of the Eole gardens had been organized jointly by the State and the City of Paris.. A few days later, the mayor, Anne Hidalgo, blamed the state which, according to her, “Let the situation rot”, claiming that she cannot be “To be satisfied with this short-term policy which consists in transferring the problem from one district to another”. May 26, during a demonstration by residents of Eole to ask for sustainable solutions, the deputy mayor in charge of the security of the 18^e district, Kévin Havet, denounced “The inaction of the government and Gérald Darmanin [le ministre de l’intérieur], who think they are providing an answer by moving drug users to the Eole gardens (…) without providing a substantive response ‘.

“In a month, there will be a third more users in Eole”

“There is a political battle to put the blame on a decision for which it is difficult to find someone who fully assumes it”, sums up, with a sigh, Jean-Pierre Couteron. This clinical psychologist, a figure in addictology and risk reduction in France, also leads the Citizen’s Drug Addiction Observatory in the 19^e borough.

You have 75.55% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.