Paris: discussions around the new “Crack Plan” started next week
While several French elected officials come to co-sign a forum in Le Monde claiming to be “ready to welcome care and weaning spaces” on their territory, the question of crack was invited to the Council of Paris this Wednesday, October 12. Asked about this, Laurent Nuñez assured that a new Crack Plan was under study.
“We are in the process of renewing the Crack Plan which we wish to be a partnership, with the police headquarters, the regional prefecture and the Regional Health Agency”, explained the Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez this Wednesday, announcing that a “crack steering committee” would meet on Tuesday 18 October in the presence of local elected officials.
The answer must also “be sanitary”
Defending a first Crack Plan launched in 2019, which, according to him, allowed “to get a lot of consumers off the public highway”, the prefect noted that the response to this public health problem could “not only be repressive and judicial” but Should also “be sanitary”. But “on this, we need support, help,” he hammered, addressing elected Parisians.
The day after the dismantling of the Forceval square camp, the prefect pleaded for the creation of “reception and rest areas”, a subject on which, according to him, “we must beware of controversy” and “not distort” the raison d’être of these treatment rooms by proving them to be mere consumption rooms, where it would be authorized to take drugs with complete impunity.
“Do not doubt my determination”, he added, recalling nevertheless that the repressive action was going to be “continued”, “in particular to arrest the traffickers”, testifying to “the action carried out from Guyana” where returned the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin in person “to prevent us from having cocaine coming from crack networks”.
“This work must be collective”
In response, Anne Souyris, the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of public health, regretted the “evacuation process” which consists of “disseminating users in the public space”: “eternal return to square one ” in his eyes. “We also want the end of crack in the public space. This work must be collective. We can not do it without each other, and without a very strong framework of the State ” , she insisted.
“All the boroughs must get started,” added the elected ecologist, who believes that the famous “Addiction Care Halts” announced by Olivier Véran when he was Minister of Health “are not sufficient”. “We know that this is neither the alpha nor the omega of this story, we also need weaning spaces, rest rooms and places to stay. I hope we can do this work together”.
Presented to this exchange, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo revealed herself “happy to note that we do not oppose the question of the safety of local residents to the health question”. Two subjects which were opposed to each other according to the city councilor, leading “to reduce public action and the efficiency expected by [ses] fellow citizens “. “There can be no progress on one of these two subjects without progress on the other”, she concluded.