• A demonstration bringing together a hundred people was initiated by the association of traders from the Cours Gambetta, in Lyon, Thursday, October 21.

  • The traders deplore the incivility and recurrent insecurity at La Guillotière, which scare their customers away.

  • The procession wanted to launch a "cry of alarm" and "despair" towards the elected officials of Lyon whose light accommodation measures have not convinced. 

"And where are the chosen ones?" "Angry traders!" »Curtain down, fist raised, the traders of the Cours Gambetta closed shop to demonstrate this Thursday afternoon and brandish their exasperation on signs and slogans. At issue: the growing insecurity in La Guillotière, denounced many times by its traders and residents, who deplore the inertia of Lyon's elected officials.

For the past few days, a yellow poster in front of several shops in the street has been setting the tone: “Abandoned traders!

We want action!

», We could read.

The procession, which left Place Victor-Basch, is good-natured, but real anger.

The young employee of a bakery, who wishes to remain anonymous, confides that “incivility is everyday.

The spitting in front of the store, the gangs fighting all the way inside the store… I'm often afraid ”.

Scorched, assaulted customers

Julien Deschamps, optician, is president of the association of merchants of the cours Gambetta, at the initiative of this “completely new” event, he admits. "For some time, we were on the verge of explosion, and the last straw was this settling of scores with knives, a few weeks ago (September 16, ed.)" If the course The Cours Gambetta is going up again, it is also because the phenomenon should not be reduced to the Place Gabriel-Péri: "The phenomenon is spreading oil, and now street vendors are now present throughout the Cours Gambetta" .

Bruno Dupuis, manager of a pizzeria since 2018, explains that “the street vendors settled here during the confinement.

We tried to drive them out of the threshold of our businesses.

But since June, some customers no longer hesitate to tell me that they are afraid to come in the evening, because they endure less and less these crowds and these permanent solicitations.

I have had clients who had their cellphones stolen from my restaurant door, another had her collar ripped off in the middle of the street two weeks ago.

"

Light refits are not a solution

So, like the groups of residents, the association of traders asked to meet the mayors, to summon them to act. “This gives group consultations on improvements, traffic management, embellishment, what, but no substantive treatment! »Deplores Bruno Dupuis. “We know very well that they are destitute and cannot find a solution. It is a common front between the State, justice and the city, and there, political wills diverge… ”

The residents, concerned, joined the hundred or so demonstrators in the procession, which took place in peace even if the police officers present were sometimes congratulated, sometimes mocked.

"This demonstration is a cry of alarm, of despair too", continues Bruno Dupuis.

“Maybe this will be the start of a revolt that really wants action, not scoops or 'light rearrangements'.

It is not by planting trees or pedestrianizing a street that we will solve the problem of delinquency.

"

Miscellaneous

Lyon: A young homeless man stabbed with several stab wounds at La Guillotière

Politics

Lyon: "No magic wand exists", responds to the subject of the Guillotière Grégory Doucet who denies "hiding behind his little finger"

  • Lyon

  • Tradespeople

  • Demonstration

  • Society

  • Police