the right accuses the left of “gangrening” the 16th century
An elected LR from the Council of Paris accuses the left-wing majority of PS mayor Anne Hidalgo of “gangrene» the 16th arrondissement with the project of a care center for drug addicts, including crack users.
Read alsoCrack: outcry over a reception center project in the 16th arrondissement of Paris
With the structure of 35 medical beds which should open in the coming months in the former Chardon-Lagache hospital, “you are scattering the inhuman throughout Paris and you are going to plague the 16th century“, an accused Rudolph Granier, triggering a bronca on the left during the question session on Wednesday.
For Rudolph Granier, this project “absurd“, carried by the Hospitals of Paris (AP-HP) and the Regional Health Agency (ARS) with the support of the town hall, amounts to implementing “a structure for crack addicts in the heart of the 16th arrondissement, which is absolutely not concerned with the consumption or trafficking of this drug“. For the legislative candidate in the 18th arrondissement, Anne Hidalgo, who has nonothing done“against the consumption of this derivative of cocaine, goes thus”continue the dissemination of crack in Paris“. He said he wanted to launch an administrative appeal against this project.
“Filming rooms”
The presence of crack users in the public space of north-eastern Paris is a sensitive issue for mayor Anne Hidalgo, who hopes in September 2021 to open a reception center in the 20th century but had to give it up in the face of opposition from residents and the government’s veto. Since then, the latter has extended the experimentation with lower-risk consumption rooms (SCMR), nicknamed “filming rooms» by their opponents and renamed addiction treatment centers (HSA).
Projects like that of Chardon-Lagache “are not SCMRs, they are medical beds for people with multiple pathologies and/or with serious psychiatric problems“, replied the health assistant (EELV) Anne Souyris to Rudolph Granier. The elected environmentalist asked the right-wing opposition to show “territorial solidarity», saying to himself «sure that the 16th century will be ready to be able to accept these people in great danger to treat them“.
Read alsoParisians demand “new methods” against crack in Paris
In a letter sent to the ARS in mid-May, borough mayor LR Francis Szpiner expressed his “categorical oppositionto the drug treatment center project, believing that it could not locate near a college, a church and a hospital.