Jean-Luc Boujon 07:08, November 21, 2023

After the death of 16-year-old Thomas, who was stabbed at the end of a ball in Crépol on Saturday, investigators are targeting the La Monnaie district in Romans-sur-Isère, <> minutes from the village, where the majority of the attackers could have come from. A sensitive neighborhood where insecurity and drug trafficking reign.

In Crépol, the 10 or 15 young assailants who provoked a general brawl on the night of Saturday to Sunday and attacked several participants of the ball, could have come mainly from the district of La Monnaie in Romans-sur-Isère, located twenty minutes from the small village. A sensitive neighbourhood, very well known in the region, for its problems of delinquency and insecurity, against a backdrop of drug trafficking.

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"Young people have the impression that they have a clear path"

The La Monnaie district is simply the haunting of the Drôme police. But we're in a small town. Romans-sur-Isère has 33,000 inhabitants. Despite everything, there is more delinquency here than in Valence, its neighbour twice as large, explains Christophe Alex, of the SGP Police union in the Drôme. "It's often Romans that causes us more problems than Valencia. Young people commit a lot of urban violence, they have the impression that they have a clear path... For our colleagues, it's sometimes complicated to get into this neighborhood," he explains.

"What keeps me here is the price of rent!"

This distressing observation is confirmed by Catherine, who has lived at La Monnaie for ten years. "We're not quiet... Four months ago, during the riots, everything was destroyed, roofs and garbage cans burned... There are drugs everywhere. What keeps me here is the price of rent! Otherwise I have no reason to stay there, it's too dangerous, it's scary," she told Europe 1 radio.

"No one comes here anymore," adds Catherine, "neither the police nor the politicians." Everyone seems to accept what the neighborhood has become, whereas it was the symbol of a certain social mix barely 40 years ago.