No waves three days before the legislative elections. Faced with rising protests, the government decided on Thursday, June 16, to freeze its plan to open a medical accommodation center for drug addicts in Auteuil, a quiet district of 16e district of Paris.
Benjamin Haddad, the candidate of La République en Marche (LRM) in the 14e constituency in the capital, was the first to announce the news. “I have been informed by the Minister of Health, Brigitte Bourguignon, that the project for a center for drug addicts in Chardon-Lagache is blocked”, he rejoiced on Twitter. “The project cannot be validated as it stands, given the concerns expressed and the first results of the consultation”, confirm to World Amélie Verdier, the director of the regional health agency (ARS) of Ile-de-France.
The prospect that Parisian users of crack and other drugs will soon be able to seek treatment at Auteuil is therefore dim. Under pressure, the government is thus calling into question a project that it had itself launched and considered urgent a few weeks ago.
In 2021, the ARS had drawn up a simple observation: Paris is sorely lacking in structures for people in precarious situations suffering from complex health problems, in particular drug addicts. In January 2022, the agency is therefore launching a call for projects to create two care centers. “Given the immediate needs”, it is essential to use existing buildings, and to open within six months, underlines the ARS.
Hostile reactions from local residents
Two specialized associations, Aurore and Gaïa, then come to an agreement with the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), and submit a joint application for one of these two centres. The AP-HP has free spaces in a disused wing of the Chardon-Lagache hospital. It is planned to accommodate thirty-five people in great distress, volunteers, who could stay there for a long time, or even end their lives there.
Initially, all signals appear green. The file submitted by the three partners “is the subject of a unanimously favorable opinion”, indicates the ARS. The mayor (Les Républicains, LR) of the borough, Francis Szpiner, certainly points out his “categorical opposition”. The center “cannot reasonably be established in this district, in the immediate vicinity of the Jean-Baptiste-Say high school, the church of Auteuil, and the Sainte-Périne hospital”, he wrote, on May 11, to the ARS, insisting on “the inevitable risks” that drug addicts will weigh on the neighborhood. But these criticisms, which have remained confidential, do not alarm the public authorities. The project has “intended to be retained”, ensures the ARS at the end of May.
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