It is a new standoff between the City of Paris and the police headquarters which is committed concerning crack users. According to the prefecture, the SNCF has “gave his consent“to the state for”loan and provision“of one of its plots located”at the intersection of two railway lines and Boulevard Poniatowski” in the 12th arrondissement of Paris (press release).
This transfer project, at the request of the Minister of the Interior, immediately caused the elected officials of the City of Paris to react, outraged. For Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy (PS) of mayor Anne Hidalgo, the choice of this concerted development zone is a “absolute absurdity” and an “solitary decision taken without any consultation“.
Local elected officials from all sides oppose it
Since the publication of the press release on Tuesday evening, political reactions have multiplied. The mayors of the 12th arrondissement of Paris (EELV) and Charenton-le-Pont (LR) gave a joint press conference with the town hall of Paris, to explain their dismay at a decision they consider “brutal” and ” unilateral”.
We were frightened by the method and the total lack of information to local elected officials,
declares Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie, Europe-Ecologie-les-Verts mayor of the 12th arrondissement.
A place away from homes?
The press release from the prefect specified that the place had been chosen because “as far as possible from residential areas, shops or transport hubs, and on the other hand, accessible to health and social services.“The LR mayor of Charenton-le-Pont, Hervé Gicquel, does not agree:”We are a few dozen meters from the first homes in Charenton and the Bercy 2 Shopping Center, at the foot of the ring road“, he describes.
I disagree with the fact that this place is free of any dwelling and residence.
A long-planned urban project on the site loaned by the SNCF
It is in this industrial wasteland that the Bercy-Charenton urban project should emerge within a few years, a new district made up of housing, offices, shops and green spaces. Partnerships had already been signed, according to local elected officials. Hervé Gicquel explains: “We have been working on it for years with the regional prefecture, with the State services, with our developers. And there, from one day to the next, we give a sudden halt to this prospect.“
I resent this decision.
If no common solution is found, the elected officials indicate that they will use all possible remedies, including a referral to the Administrative Court. An emergency meeting on the Crack Plan will be held next Tuesday, under the aegis of the regional prefect and in the presence of all the stakeholders. The objective will be to ease tensions and find common and lasting solutions.
Concerned residents
Shortly after the announcement, the inhabitants of the 12th arrondissement, worried, consulted each other. This Wednesday, parents and neighbors met to discuss the situation, and a petition was launched on Change.org by a resident: “No to a Crack Hill in the 12th! Let’s finally find lasting solutions.”
Michel Cerdan is responsible for the Vallée de Fécamp District Council. The transfer project does not seem to him good for the inhabitants, nor for the drug addicts. “As residents, what concerns us is that the main neighbors are two emergency shelters, with more than 400 people. These are many families who are already in great precariousness, to whom we will put them at risk.“
He pursues : “Given the configuration of the area, consumers and people around will not stay on Boulevard Poniatowski, above the railway tracks.”
They will move right next to it: in the Bois de Vincennes, on the small belt. There is an elementary school nearby.
“We do not understand how the police headquarters could make a decision so quickly“, he concludes.
For its part, the police headquarters indicates that even if “moving drug users does not definitively solve the problem of crack“, this is a “duty towards the residents of the 19th and 18th arrondissements who have been tested for too long by the presence of users.”