This will probably not please the inhabitants of the beautiful neighborhoods.

A care center for drug addicts will soon open in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the health assistant at the Paris town hall said on Wednesday.

While the City, faced with the problem of crack users in the northeastern boroughs, has been looking for places to stay for months, the opening in the coming months of a "stabilization structure" in the former Chardon-Lagache hospital is "very good news", said Anne Souyris on Wednesday during a press briefing.

According to the elected ecologist, the Assistance-Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP) responded to a call for projects from the Regional Health Agency (ARS) for 25 medical reception beds (LAM) and 10 drop-in care beds (LHSS), two types of structures whose establishment in the capital will be a first.

The fact that this structure is located in a district very anchored on the right, far from the districts most affected by drug consumption in the street, contributes to “territorial solidarity”, estimates Ms. Souyris.

State and City struggle to find common ground

"It will not be a space of consumption", insisted the deputy mayor PS Anne Hidalgo according to which the consumers taken care of "will have already completed a course of care" and will already be "stabilized".

Crack consumers "will not come directly from Forceval to Chardon-Lagache", located "far from the consumption scene", she indicated in reference to the small square in north-eastern Paris (19th century) that 150 to 200 consumers have continued to visit since September, when they were moved there by the police headquarters to relieve the neighboring district of the Jardins d'Eole.

Neither the ARS nor the AP-HP had responded to AFP's requests on Wednesday evening.

While they are working together on the crack plan, which has mobilized 25 million euros since 2019, and the government has extended the experimentation with lower-risk consumption rooms (SCMR), which have become addiction treatment centers (HSA), State and City are struggling to find common ground on this sensitive issue.

At the end of January, in front of the "virulent opposition of the mayor of Paris", the police headquarters had given up moving the regulars of Forceval to the wasteland of Bercy-Charenton (12th), with the stated aim of relieving the 19th arrondissement.

In September, it was the town hall that had given up on opening a first reception center for crack users on rue Pelleport (XXth) in the face of immediate opposition from residents and the government's veto.

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Crack in Paris: Demonstration this weekend of the inhabitants and traders of the Porte de la Villette

  • Paris

  • Crack

  • Substance addiction

  • Dope

  • Ile-de-France