Europe 1 with AFP 5:58 p.m., September 13, 2022

Laurent Nuñez, the new police chief of Paris, ordered a major police operation on Tuesday in a square in the northeast of the capital.

For the past year, several crack users have found refuge there.

As of 1 p.m. on Tuesday, around 450 police officers were deployed to carry out this operation.

The new police chief of Paris Laurent Nuñez ordered a major police operation on Tuesday in a square in the northeast of the capital where crack users have been gathered for a year, noted an AFP journalist.

From 1 p.m., 450 police officers, including agents from the services to combat irregular immigration and the CRS, were deployed to carry out this operation.

"Since my arrival, and particularly since August 4, I have wanted to accentuate the repressive aspect of this place", declared Laurent Nuñez at Square Forceval, where there were around 150 crack users who live in tents and makeshift shelters. .

"About fifteen common law offenses" were noted, according to a provisional report given by the prefect, and "a certain number of people will be placed in police custody".

Crack users, displaced a year ago

A year ago, by decision of the police headquarters, crack users, who have been concentrated in the north-east of Paris for around thirty years, were moved to this square in the 19th arrondissement, at the entrance to municipalities of Pantin and Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis).

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"It is first of all a question of occupying the public space. I deploy here on average every day, between the square and the place Stalingrad, but also Pantin and Aubervilliers, 200 police officers", added the prefect Nuñez.

When he took office in mid-July, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had ordered him to settle "within a year" the "dramatic situation" of crack in Paris.

A new comprehensive crack control plan is to be presented in September.

"This type of operation is intended to continue over time," added the police chief on Tuesday.

"I can't let it be said that we are completely abandoning this district, it's completely false," he said again.

Some residents stopped him at the exit of the square, denouncing the grouping of crack users in this neighborhood already undermined by poverty and drug trafficking.

The prefect promised to receive the inhabitants soon.