Dozens of traders pulled their curtains for a few minutes as the procession passed.
Little show of strength. About 300 people demonstrated and traders lowered their curtains on Saturday in Aubervilliers and Pantin to express their anger, six months after the displacement of drug addicts in a square in Paris, on the edge of Seine-Saint-Denis.
Dozens of traders drew their curtains for a few minutes as the procession passed by, which had, a little earlier, attended the fictitious inauguration of the “district of getting high” by actors perched on a platform. “We crack”, was it written on the brandished signs.
The annoying traders
The working-class district of Quatre-Chemins, straddling these two towns, is close to the Porte de la Villette square, where crack addicts, a smokable, cheap and very addictive derivative of cocaine, live in deplorable conditions.
“They are everywhere and ask for money constantly, it bothers the customers, we have lost a lot of customers because of that”, testifies Mohamed Ali, 28, waiter in a restaurant.
Since the movement of drug addicts, piloted in September by the Paris police headquarters to relieve the Jardins d’Éole (18th century), the previous regrouping point, the two majority demands of local residents have remained unchanged: “Treat them! Protect us! “.
“It bothers me that they are there, they only drink and smoke there,” says Moussa Keita, a 27-year-old translator. “The authorities must take their responsibilities,” he adds, reflecting the general feeling.
“People are forced to accept the consequences of government directives” while the neighborhood is already accumulating “great social difficulties”, protests Thierry Chevallier, living there for 37 years.
“Suffering” and “Distress”
Demonstrators also denounced the stormy movement in the camp of the far-right candidate Éric Zemmour on Friday, castigating any “political recovery” in the face of the “suffering” of the population and the “distress” which reigns in the square.
On Monday, the administrative court had rejected the appeal of the town halls of Paris, Pantin and Aubervilliers, as well as the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, aimed at obliging the State to offer accommodation and medico-social monitoring to all consumers of crack installed in the square.
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