They demand from the state a health response to the issue of crack cocaine in Paris. The town halls of Paris, Pantin and Aubervilliers, as well as the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, announced that on Wednesday, February 9, they had applied to the administrative court to compel the State to provide medical and social support to crack users, installed since September in a square, Porte de la Villette.
The request for interim relief “useful measures” that the four collectivities say they have filed with the administrative court aims to order the State to take “emergency measures to resolve the very worrying situation that we have been witnessing for months, Porte de La Villette”, said Nicolas Nordman, the deputy (PS) for security of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, at the city council.
Medical and social care
The State must, “provisionally and conservatively”, offer “an emergency accommodation allowing medico-social care for addicts installed in the 18e, 19e and 20e arrondissements of Paris and on the edge of the Seine-Saint-Denis, or, at the very least, any useful measure to preserve the health, dignity of the persons concerned as well as their safety and that of residents “, the communities said in a joint statement.
Since September and the displacement of these 150 to 200 addicts in order to relieve the gardens of Eole (18e), previous grouping point, “the inertia of state public authorities is obvious when they are competent both in health matters (…) that in matters of emergency accommodation or public order “, communities still believe.
The 1er February, the state services had announced the financing of 70 additional places of accommodation for these addicts, corresponding to the number of addicts sleeping permanently on site, and bringing to 510 the number of total places financed by the crack plan.
At the end of January, the prefect of police Didier Lallement announced that he wanted to move this same group of drug addicts from the north-east of Paris, their historic district, to a railway wasteland in Bercy (south-east). He had given up, three days later, in front of the “virulent opposition” from the Paris City Hall, joined by the right-wing elected representatives of the Val-de-Marne.