Lyon station attack: local residents point the finger at Place Henri Fresnay

Guillaume Dominguez, edited by Alexandre Dalifard / Photo credit: Europe 1 5:45 a.m., February 4, 2024

Three people injured with knives, including one with a life-threatening condition, are the results of the attack that occurred on Saturday morning at the Gare de Lyon in Paris. The assailant, a 32-year-old Malian with Italian papers, was arrested and placed in police custody before it was lifted in view of his incompatible psychiatric state. According to information from Europe1, the man, homeless, had been living in the neighborhood for several months, more particularly on Place Henry Frenay, where residents have been subjected to the incivility of hundreds of migrants living in the neighborhood for several years. 

“It’s fed up”

In the shadow of the square's arches, several hooded figures leave the remains of their meals behind them, just in front of the window of a music store. Inside, Eddy, one of the sellers, once again notices the damage. “You have a whole crowd of people who can be on mattresses. They drink, they eat, they smoke, they deal, it’s fed up,” he laments at the microphone of Europe 1. And at night, it's even worse: shouting, fights, drug dealing, and sometimes even aggression. In the block of buildings located just above the square, all the local residents, like Sophie, experience real hell.

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“Our daily life is first of all seeing people defecate in the street in front of our children, seeing drug dealers, delinquency. I am the mother of three children, including one who is 20 years old. She has not the right to go out in the evening or I accompany her, I bring her back, but I don’t leave my children in the neighborhood,” she admits. Nuisances which began in April 2021, she explains, when several associations organized food distributions on the square. 

Today president of a local residents' collective, Sophie denounces the town hall's inaction. "We have no response from her. We told her that a tragedy was going to occur and the tragedy that happened was perpetrated by an individual who was hanging around in the neighborhood. She despised us, that's what happened." , she warns. The collective is now demanding the permanent presence of police forces on the square and the supervision of food distributions. Distributions that would attract more than 300 people and could last until two in the morning. 

For her part, Christelle, also a local resident and president of a residents' association, describes the same situation. “At the beginning we had a lot of young unaccompanied migrants who often fought among themselves. Now we have adults who shout all the time and who defecate in our passageways,” she explains. In addition, local women would be the preferred targets of migrants on the square. “I was told that my 13-year-old daughter was ‘good’ and that I shouldn’t complain because at her age in the country she would have children,” denounces Christelle.