Crack in Paris: Forceval camp evacuated by police

A large police device was deployed around the camp early Wednesday morning, in the presence of the new Paris police prefect, Laurent Nunez.

Le Monde with AFP

The Campment de Forceval, in the northeast of Paris, where a hundred Crack consumers have gathered for a year, began to be dismantled Wednesday, October 5 in the morning by the police, announced the minister of The interior, Gérald Darmanin.

“On my instruction, the prefect of police proceeds to the final dismantling of the Crack of the Square Forceval. A thousand police officers will be deployed so that this camp is not reconstituted elsewhere”, a tweeted the Minister of the Interior at the time when the police entered the camp , as noted by a journalist from the France-Presse agency.

Shortly before 7 am, an important police device deployed around the camp, in the presence of the Paris police prefect, Laurent Nunez. “In total, almost a thousand police officers will be mobilized over twenty-four hours, both to carry out the operation, but also the following days to secure the various strategic sectors and thus avoid the reconstruction of another fixing point “, We explained to the Ministry of the Interior.

m. Darmanin “gave as an instruction that no camp of this type should be reconstituted elsewhere,” it was added. The ministry stressed that this operation was “unprecedented since the crack phenomenon has affected the Northeast of Paris for several decades”.

Place Beauvau clarified that “sought after persons will be arrested, as are irregular foreigners who will be placed in CRA [administrative retention center] with a view to their expulsion”. “The other occupants will be oriented towards accommodation devices with medico-social support or in care units”.

attacks, flights and nuisances

For the new Paris police prefect, the problem of crack in the capital was in its roadmap entrusted by the Minister of the Interior. On September 25, Mr. Nunez had promised that the site would close. A year earlier, the Paris police prefecture had decided to move to this site without any shelter from Crack consumers- a smoking derivative of very addictive cocaine.

Their arrival has strongly disrupted the public security of the surrounding neighborhoods, provoking demonstrations and legal recourse to demand the evacuation of the camp. According to associative actors, between three hundred and four hundred people during the day and one hundred and fifty per night, including 35 to 40 % of women, were present in this square. The dealers sell the pebbles (crack dose at 10 euros) in the middle of consumers.

Located on the borders of 19 e arrondissement of Paris, the square is bordered by the ring road, an overheaded event zone and a large roundabout leading to the popular four-chemins, straddling between The municipalities of Pantin and Aubervilliers, in Seine-Saint-Denis. For the past year, the inhabitants of this district and that of the Villette, in Paris have continued to complain about the attacks, thefts and other nuisances caused by the installation of Crack consumers. On September 24, on the anniversary of the displacement of the latter, five hundred demonstrators had paraded in the streets of Pantin and Aubervilliers to denounce “laissez-faire” from the authorities and demand the evacuation of the camp.