The square where crack consumers have been gathered for a year on the northeast edge of the capital “will close”, promised this Sunday the new Paris police chief, Laurent Nuñez, without specifying a date.
“The camp and Square Forceval on Place Auguste-Baron (19th arrondissement) are not intended to last, obviously this open-air scene must close and will close,” he said on BFM-TV.
“The commitment is twofold: it is both the closure of this site, when the time comes, and obviously, that it is not reconstituted elsewhere”, continued the prefect, considering it necessary to have “devices for taking loads that are robust”.
On September 24, 2021, the Paris police headquarters decided to move crack users – a highly addictive smokable derivative of cocaine – who had been wandering around the Jardins d’Éole (18th arrondissement) to this site without any shelter.
At the gates of the capital, 300 to 400 drug addicts are delivered to violence and trafficking, themselves disrupting public security in the 19th arrondissement as well as in the adjacent neighborhoods in the communes of Pantin and Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis).
150 to 200 police officers mobilized
Several hundred people, including exasperated residents, demonstrated on Saturday to demand the “evacuation” of the camp. On September 13, Laurent Nuñez, appointed in July to replace Didier Lallement, ordered a vast police operation in this square in the northeast of the capital.
The police headquarters had affirmed that since the beginning of the year, “300 cases related to” this drug “have been processed”, “2.3 kg of crack have been seized and more than 160,000 euros in assets criminals as well as 14 kitchens (places where crack cakes are made) dismantled”.
On Sunday, Laurent Nuñez said that since August 4, 24 traffickers had been arrested and five crack manufacturing sites dismantled, stressing that on average between 150 and 200 police officers were present every day to secure the area.