“Safety is part of my job”
Two deaths in Gerland in May, two others in La Duchère three weeks ago, fights at La Guillotière, urban rodeos: the capital of Gaul has sadly been in the news since the start of the year. Accused of “angelism” by the former city councilor Gérard Collomb, the green mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet is organizing a press conference this Wednesday to counterattack. Exclusively for our newspaper, he explains his philosophy in the fight against violence.
Marianne: How do you explain the worrying worsening of acts of violence in the metropolis of Lyon in recent months?
Gregory Doucet: Lyon has experienced drama in recent months with shootings at Gerland and Duchère. All the major urban centers and all the major French cities have seen the appearance of new delinquency and criminality phenomena as a result of the end of the pandemic and the end of confinement.
This is a subject that I have been working on since the beginning of my mandate with my team. As early as September 2020, I had asked Gérald Darmanin that our city have 300 additional national police officers.
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Similarly, a few months ago in the city of Lyon and in the metropolis, we saw the development of urban rodeo phenomena. On decision with the services of the national police, justice and the City of the extremely proactive actions: anti-rodeo unit, systematic arrest of the perpetrators based on video surveillance images, convictions, seizures of vehicles. This has not completely eliminated the phenomenon, but it has largely stemmed it. There are still a few perpetrators here and there and we continue to show the greatest severity because rodeos are very dangerous, especially in pedestrian areas.