The operation began shortly before 7 a.m. On Wednesday, October 5 in the morning, the Paris Police Prefecture launched the evacuation “definitive” of the camp of crack users installed for a year in the square Forceval, in the 19e district, near the Porte de La Villette. A deployment of an almost unprecedented scale, according to the Ministry of the Interior. A thousand police and gendarmes have been mobilized for a dismantling planned and prepared for several weeks. The operation resulted in 39 arrests, the ministry said. Present on the spot at the end of the afternoon, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who gave the green light, wants to believe in “an important moment for the restoration of public order in Paris”. The device will be deployed over time in order to prevent, he hopes, any reconstruction elsewhere of such a scene of open-air drug addiction.
Amid the hubbub of sirens and the digger cleaning the camp, around fifty consumers were gathered at the back of the square, out of sight. They were subjected to identity checks as well as health checks carried out by the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Ile-de-France, before being taken care of.
Other consumers were arrested in the surrounding area, particularly around the Porte-de-la-Villette metro station. All under the watchful eye of a few local residents gathered near the police cordons. Most were present at the September 24 demonstration to denounce a year of political inaction around the camp. They expressed above all a fed up with the nuisances in the neighborhood, between assaults, thefts, scenes of rape or prostitution, excrement in the public space.
A few days ago, the media coverage of the attack on Jean-Baptiste Watel, a 92-year-old resident of the neighborhood, beaten up and robbed by a drug addict, on September 9, scandalized the population even more. “He was the victim of too manycomments François Dagnaud (Socialist Party, PS), mayor of 19e district, arrived on the scene a little before 10 a.m. It couldn’t stay that way. But, for this to be sustainable, it would require medico-social responses, still too timid today, on this subject of public health. »
“We remain on our guard”
Despite the operation, optimism is not appropriate among residents. We denounce “propaganda from the prefecture” and we do not believe at all in the definitive nature of the evacuation. “No, the crack at the door of La Villette is not over”sighs Christine Delocque-Fourcaud, president of the Villette Village collective, having been able to observe “the deplorable living conditions and the incredible dirtiness” on the camp alongside the prefect of police, Laurent Nunez.
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