“The young person sees others dressed in Nike, he wants the same”: the fight against drugs “clean place” wants to go beyond repression

L'escalier menant au point de deal cassé dans le secteur de la Devèze à Béziers. MIDI LIBRE – Y. P.

The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin took stock of the 'clean up' operations. against drug trafficking: 155 actions carried out in France for 1,270 operations, more than two tonnes of drugs seized as well as two million euros and 300 weapons. A "clear place" has been underway in Béziers for a week where it is also about going beyond traffic but also cleaning up the neighborhood.

"But what are they going to do ?"& nbsp;Mustafa becomes worried when he sees the backhoe approaching below the bakery where he is employed. He doesn't know it yet, but the staircase providing access to the business will be destroyed a few minutes later, this Thursday, February 8 in the early morning.

The idea: break up and flatten the place, a den of drug dealers, to dismantle this "oven" in the La Devèze district, in Béziers, one of the thousands of drug resale points recorded in France, priority n° 1 of the Ministry of the Interior. For this, the State wants to increase the rate of "Net Place" where repressive legal operations are only part of the action.

"It's about not letting your guard down"

"We then have a dissuasive phase, it's about not letting our guard down, we continue to show ourselves so that the deal point doesn't not reconstituted", develops the prefect of Hérault François-Xavier Lauch, at the forefront on the subject, where the Gard, for example, is struggling with the settling of scores and has so far only launched heavy-handed operations in sensitive neighborhoods.

It is also about trying to improve the living environment: "There are objectives of all kinds: halls of ;squatted buildings, wrecks to remove, paint jobs to give, doors to change, children to re-school, associations to support, co-ownerships to support", lists François-Xavier Lauch while the operations control and renovation will continue all this week in Béziers.

"With the Olympics, I'm afraid that we will have difficulty covering everything, there is the visible part, that’ ;rsquo;is reassuring, but we also need investigators", worries Bruno Bartocetti, southern zone delegate of the Sgp-police Unit union.

But what do the local residents think?? "It’s a very, very good thing", discreetly says the employee of another business next to the destroyed staircase, careful not to be identified. "It's okay ease tensions between residents and improve cohabitation", hopes a thirty-year-old in flip-flops and socks, curious about the sudden appearance of the backhoe loader.

Below, market traders set up at dawn hurriedly repack their goods to avoid the dust from the work. One of them, Taoufik, believes that the problem lies elsewhere. It targets poverty and unemployment affecting neighborhoods.

"Traffic is not a life"

"The young guy, he sees the others dressed in Nike, he wants the same… They found the trick to making a living", he analyzes, using quite a euphemism to talk about the resale of drugs.  "But trafficking is not a life, there are parents who suffer and who can do nothing… No, what is needed is work and training! If you don't have a job, you do whatever." Very close by, one of the municipal police officers who came to secure the work in the event of a disaster. rsquo;incidents, he remains circumspect, even fatalistic: "The risk is to move the problem, as usual", he fears.

While dozens of children go to the neighboring school, mothers are also nuanced about the traffic in the cities which fuels a strong underground economy in France and feeds many families.

"It's not Marseille here"

"We were born here and it’s true that there are dealers, but this operation creates publicity. It’s not Marseille here, they are respectful, each has his own livelihood, but when they taste easy money… I'm behind my kid so he doesn't fall in", defends a young mother who lives in the heart of the deal point, where, she concedes, a young man was still killed with a Kalashnikov last August. Another mother who accompanies him points out this concern: "What is there for the young people ? where are the play areas ? There is nothing, she laments, stroller in hand.