In Lille, battle between Aubry and Darmanin over a lower risk consumption room

Lionel Gougelot 6:11 a.m., October 27, 2021

It is the story of a conflict between two northern politicians, the other in Lille, one in government.

The town hall of Lille, represented by Martine Aubry, had for project to develop a "room of consumption with less risk", also called "room of shoot".

The mayor thought she had found the most relevant location, a room integrated into an addiction center at the CHU and a place closed behind a high wall, with limited nuisance without a queue of drug addicts on the public highway.

But Tourquennois Gérald Darmanin opposed this decision.

An arbitration won by Darmanin

The Minister of the Interior denounced such an experiment in a sensitive neighborhood plagued by drug trafficking.

And if the project got the green light from the Ministry of Health and even from Jean Castex last spring, the Prime Minister is now asking the mayor of Lille to find another place.

It is therefore Gérald Darmanin who finally won the arbitration, a purely political decision, according to the mayor of Lille, who considers that "Mr. Darmanin" is "undoubtedly on a mission to pursue the right and the extreme right for Mr. President of the Republic".

"Fewer syringes on the floor"

Martine Aubry is opposed to the position of the Minister of the Interior in health matters: "When I see his remarks on immigrants and refugees, and there, on drug addicts, who tells us that we must fight them and not not accompany them ... Me, I am to fight them, I ask him for even more police officers, but I am also to accompany: when there is a consumption room, there are fewer syringes on the ground, there are also fewer populations that can get HIV, hepatitis A or diseases. "

Still, at this stage, this lower risk consumption room project seems well and truly buried.

The reason ?

The alternative solutions proposed by the government are located on non-building and polluted land.