Crack at the Porte de la Villette: the police and the town hall of Paris clean but do not evacuate (yet) – Liberation

The objective is quite clear: to prevent the installation of a new “crack hill” in the 19th arrondissement. The Paris town hall and the police headquarters launched this Wednesday morning a joint cleaning operation around the Porte de la Villette square, where crack users were displaced during their evacuation from the Garden of Eole and Stalingrad on Friday.

Since 7 am, and a few hours from a demonstration of residents, men in white with a yellow vest are hard at work under the close surveillance of many police officers and the inquisitive gaze of the occupants of the premises. Wooden pallets and pieces of sheet metal are loaded on board the vans of the city of Paris, uprooted from a ground strewn with all kinds of rubbish which will also end up in the trash bags of the town hall. Only the drug addicts’ tents remain standing, gathered in the center of the square.

Attachment point

While waiting to reinvest the premises, the consumers of crack observe, haggard, their shattered sofas being taken on board. The idea of ​​the operation does not therefore consist in evacuating this new fixing point between authorities and residents, between Paris and the suburbs, between the State and Anne Hidalgo.

According to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, a meeting must take place this Thursday “under the authority of the prefect of the Ile-de-France region and the prefect of police, with the town hall of Paris and with all the elected officials who will want to participate, a meeting which will make it possible to put an end to this situation very quickly, so that the town hall of Paris offers us places ». A barely veiled pressure stroke.

“Wall of shame”

This morning, it is officially an operation “humanitarian”, we are assured on the spot, where makeshift homes have been set up on the edge of the entrance ramp on the ring road. The idea is also to avoid the outbreaks of fire and sexual assault for the many women present on the spot, explains an official. Try to ensure that the Porte de la Villette square remains a place of consumption but not a camp. When we see a man taking advantage of the mess to extract two dusty pillows from the stack of pallets, we understand, however, that the task is complex.

The operation this morning, like each of the daily cleanings by agents of the town hall, has the merit of preventing the waste from piling up. And toilets installed to offer a minimum of hygiene are welcome. But like the wall hastily mounted by the police headquarters to close access to Pantin and avoid any overflow in the tunnel, it looks more like a bandage on a wooden leg. A wall already marked, especially on the Pantin side by an eloquent graffiti: “The wall of shame. Thank you Darmanin. ”

Updated at 2:30 p.m. with the statements of the Minister of the Interior on the meeting to be held Thursday with the town hall of Paris.