Anouan, with her peroxidized hair, claims to be 14 years old. He was arrested in early September, in the middle of the night, in the shop of a florist in Plaisir (Yvelines), with two accomplices aged 11 and 12. But the radiological tests carried out on his bones at the forensic institute of Garches (Hauts-de-Seine) give him 19. This is what allowed the judges of the Versailles Criminal Court to sentence him to 18 months of prison closes on September 8. “I am flying on behalf of two Algerians who give me medicine”, assured the false minor before the judges.
They are hundreds, the exact figure is impossible to determine, real minors, this time, for the most part Moroccan, to live from burglaries and robberies in Ile-de-France. The police call these young delinquents “miners” (because they always present themselves as minors to escape prosecution). And even bone testing is controversial. A magistrate recognizes it: “It is true that there is a margin of error of more or less two years. “
Placed in homes, “two minutes later, they run away”
It is a puzzle for justice and the exasperation is mounting among the victims. If they seize only a few hundred euros most of the time, “the biggest damage consists above all in repairing the damage caused”, says Alain Marcillac, referring safety of the national order of pharmacists. On average, an invoice of 3,500 euros.
A raid that is reflected in the figures. “For three years, their number has increased with a succession of migratory waves,” said the Paris police headquarters. In 2018, there were 7,603 arrests of unaccompanied minors in the Paris metropolitan area (Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne and Hauts-de-Seine). In 2019, it was 9,134 arrests, an increase of 20%. And for the first eight months of 2020, there are already the arrest of 6,309 foreign minors, or 300 more than in 2019 over the same period. A further increase of 42%, which even reaches 51% in Paris!
At the Department of Proximity Security of the Parisian agglomeration (DSPAP), it is specified that “half of those arrested for burglaries are unaccompanied Maghreb minors”. “Sometimes, we will have a criminal response worthy of the name because the theft is accompanied by violence, and there, the legal qualification allows the prosecution to be able to request the imprisonment of minors,” blows a senior officer. Otherwise, they are placed in a home, “and two minutes later, they run away.”
“A real wave throughout the region”
Since their appearance at the end of 2016, in the district of Goutte-d’Or in the north of Paris, these delinquent “miners” tended to live and steal in the capital, but since the end of 2018, their activities have spread to throughout Ile-de-France, thanks to the RER and suburban trains.
“We are undergoing a real wave over the entire region,” assures Versailles prosecutor Maryvonne Caillibotte. We favor a fairly firm penal policy by asking for incarceration in the hope that it will be dissuasive ”. Same firm tone at the Créteil prosecutor’s office: “We are uncompromising, especially when it comes to thefts with violence,” assures the prosecutor. We require warrants of committal as soon as the minors are known ”.
Catherine Delanoë-Daoud, lawyer at the Paris bar, co-responsible for the MiE pole (unaccompanied foreign minors), further defends the idea of ”fostering”. “They need support, but in Paris, we let them go on probation,” she annoys. The young person must then come back a few days later in front of the judge, in the meantime, where does he sleep? Well he goes back to the street and doesn’t come back to the judge! “
