Bobigny police station takes on water after pipeline rupture

“Hello, from Noisy-le-Sec, hello. “This Wednesday, when we dialed the phone number of the Bobigny police station, we landed on that of the neighboring commune. At the reception, the officer announces that the Balbyn police hotel is “closed for a technical problem”.

Indeed, at about 11:30 a.m., a water main broke completely, engulfing the first floor of the building under liters of water. Images posted on the SGP Police Unit 93 union website show spectacular waterfalls flowing through the false ceilings. Under the pressure of water, slabs fall one after another onto a floor already soaked with a good five centimeters of water.

“The pipeline broke at the level of the territorial security service and the judicial service of the police station, resulting in power cuts,” said a policeman.

The building on Rue de Carency houses not only the police station but also the territorial security services and the judicial police, a theoretical strength of 400 officers. This Wednesday, several dozen people were forced to evacuate the scene.

It was necessary to quickly find a fallback solution. The reception of the flagrante delicto had to move to the Noisy-le-Sec police station and the dozen people whose custody was in progress were sent back to different departments.

After this incident, criticism is already flying. “It’s not only raining in court,” quipped a policeman from the escort this afternoon, referring to the infiltrations that occurred in the building in rainy weather.

The union SGP Police Unit 93 requested that “the real estate affairs department draw up an inventory of the premises of the building in order to prevent this from happening again”. A building inaugurated on December 22, 2003 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior. So there are less than twenty years.

This is not the first time that the Bobigny police station has been damaged. In April 2018, the toilets reserved for detainees and located on the first floor had literally exploded. At the time, there was a problem with the slope of the water drain and sewage uplifts to the first floor.

The situation is expected to return to normal on Thursday. The public will be welcomed there again. Coincidentally, it is also this Thursday that the Minister of the Interior will move to the prefecture of Bobigny, a few hundred meters from the disaster police station.