Faced with the outbreak of urban violence, mayors of the metropolis want to change gear

The urban violence that occurred on the night of December 31, and the days that followed, in the Bordeaux urban area left its mark. And have finished convincing several mayors of the metropolis to move up a gear in the fight against delinquency.

This Thursday, the mayor of Bègles and vice-president of the metropolis Clément Rossignol-Puech (EELV), will propose to the metropolitan office the creation of an inter-municipal committee for security and crime prevention (CLSPD) at the scale of the 28 municipalities, “in order to better coordinate the action of the forces of the national and municipal police, justice and prevention actors in the territories. “

“A fireworks competition between neighborhoods that lasted several nights”

“The night of the 31st, a milestone was crossed in the Bordeaux conurbation, he believes, with attacks by police vehicles, a number of burnt cars never reached so far, and here in Bègles a restaurant which has was set on fire in the Terres-Neuves district. There was also a use of fireworks mortars, with a fireworks competition between neighborhoods that lasted several nights in a row. And of course there was this tragedy on January 2 in Bordeaux, with the death of a young man in Aubiers. “

Same analysis on the side of Pessac, where New Year’s Eve was also agitated. “The night of December 31 was the climax of what has been rising for years in the La Chataigneraie-Arago district, Mayor Franck Raynal (LR) explains to us this Thursday. About fifty young people, mainly minors, attacked the police, from the curfew and until 2 a.m. A municipal police vehicle received a Molotov cocktail, and a few minutes later the police were the target of fireworks. We could have had a first death in Pessac on the evening of December 31st. And it was all premeditated, organized. “

Provide “new answers to the evolution of this delinquency”

For Clément Rossignol-Puech, who had created a municipal police force on his arrival in 2018, the metropolitan CLSPD should make it possible to provide “new responses to the development of this crime. “” Delinquents and criminals are very mobile, they move from one neighborhood to another in the city, and municipal responses are insufficient. There was a change in the organization of the police on January 1, so public policies need to be aligned. “

Franck Raynal convened for his part a local Council for security and prevention of exceptional delinquency Wednesday evening, in the presence of the prosecutor of the Republic of Bordeaux Frédérique Porterie. He announced his intention to arm his municipal police, to strengthen its workforce in the Chataigneraie district where it will also install a dozen video surveillance cameras, to create a municipal police station which will be installed in the shopping center, whose requalification has just started. “We will also set up during the year an urban supervision center which will allow the monitoring of the images of the cameras to coordinate the actions on the ground”, he adds.

“We must go beyond the large residential complex model without economic activity”

Elected officials agree, however, that the only repressive response cannot resolve the situation in their neighborhoods. “The basic problem in the district of Terres-Neuves in Bègles, is that drug trafficking has settled there, and that there is still a great precariousness, analyzes the mayor EELV. We have already invested 400 million euros of public and private money in this district, to install cultural and employment places, but we must continue to invest. It is a district in deep evolution, with in particular the Digital City, recently delivered. “

In Bordeaux, “bereaved” by the death of a teenager at the beginning of the year, the mayor Pierre Hurmic (EELV) announced this Thursday that “Les Aubiers, but also the districts of Grand-Parc, Chantecrit, Benauge, Saint Michel should be treated as a priority. “He will propose” to the next municipal council to appoint a new assistant, mainly in charge of these districts. “The challenge will be” to support economic development and the tangible return of local public services. We must go beyond the large residential complex model without economic activity that the Aubiers illustrates well. We will do everything to promote another model. “

Regarding La Chataigneraie-Arago in Pessac, “this district has been the subject of an urban renovation that began ten years ago, which architecturally is a success, but we have concentrated a family and precarious population without planning associative structures “, regrets Franck Raynal, elected mayor for the first time in 2014.” It is the youngest district of all the “Politics of the City” districts of the metropolis, which is a major explanatory factor for our situation, he continues. This is why we are going at the same time to strengthen the presence of mediators, to supervise these young people and calm the situation. “

Three out of eight towers will be destroyed in the Saige district

Another district of Pessac, Saige, is also a regular problem. “The situation in Saige is different because the urban renewal is coming, and we are going to take a radically different action there than what was done in the Châtaigneraie, announces the elected official. We are going to de-densify social housing to better distribute it in the city of Pessac, where there is already 32% of social housing. We will thus destroy three towers out of eight, and create a large esplanade which will link the university to downtown Pessac, which will open up the district. Four towers will be completely rehabilitated, and will retain a residential vocation, and one tower will accommodate offices and housing for professionals. Before starting this work, the challenge will be to empty the towers and relocate the inhabitants, which according to Domofrance will take around eighteen months, because there are nevertheless 109 homes per tower. “

“The situation is serious, but not desperate,” argues Franck Raynal, who is also counting on the reorganization of the national police to further fight against drug trafficking, “which is very often the matrix of delinquency in neighborhoods. “