in-paris,-residents-of-the-"shooting-room"-share-before-the-end-of-the-experiment

In Paris, residents of the "shooting gallery" are divided before the end of the experiment

January 18, 2025

"Overwhelmed", "relieved" or worried, the residents of the Paris "shooting gallery" are divided on this experiment carried out in the name of public health and tranquility, which is due to end at the end of 2025.

Called "low-risk consumption rooms" when they were created in 2016 in Paris and Strasbourg, the two "addiction care centers" (HSA) are aimed at "those most deprived and excluded from the healthcare system."

Under the supervision of caregivers, the 200 to 300 daily visitors to the HSA attached to the Lariboisière hospital inject their own product with sterile syringes provided by the Gaïa-Paris medical-social association.

"It used to be a mess, there were about fifty of us on the ground. We were shooting up in the car parks, kids were walking past," says one user, Tony, visibly agitated and swaying from one foot to the other.

"Some local residents complain that the hall brings together drug addicts, which was already the case before, but in the street," explains this regular buyer of Skenan, a morphine-derived drug, during a public meeting.

For Laetitia, a resident of the neighborhood since 1978 and representative of the Riverains Lariboisière Gare du Nord collective opposed to the maintenance of the Parisian stop, the appearance of the neighborhood before 2016 "was in no way comparable to what it is today."

– “A terrible climate” –

According to the fifty-year-old, the number of syringe users in the area has gone from a few to about 250 who line up every day in front of the shooting gallery. "It creates a terrible climate," she laments.

Anti-protest
Anti-"shooting gallery" demonstration in Paris, October 2, 2021 (AFP/Archives – Thomas COEX)

"When you live with this for eight years, you come to the conclusion that it was a mistake to have put this there," near apartment buildings, regrets Laetitia.

In a document sent to AFP, the police headquarters estimated the number of arrests related to drugs in the district at 115 in 2024, and those concerning disturbances of public order at 123.

"The room cannot operate if there is no deal around it," says the representative of the collective of 280 residents, who claims to still see some in the area.

The general inspections of social affairs and administration have positively assessed these stops and recommended that they be made permanent.

"The rooms improve public tranquility by reducing street consumption" and "do not generate delinquency", states their report dated October 2024, which highlights the drop in the number of abandoned syringes collected per day in the streets of Paris, which has fallen from 150 to less than 10 in eight years.

In 2021, Inserm estimated that the support offered by the shooting galleries had already prevented 43 deaths, 69% overdoses, as well as a number of HIV and hepatitis C infections.

“Before, there were drug dealing spots everywhere, people injecting themselves on the sidewalk,” says Cécile Dumas, a resident of Boulevard Magenta, near the HSA, for nearly 20 years.

"I was making a detour to avoid this area, I didn't want to go through there," continues the 52-year-old mother, "relieved" to see this space being set up in 2016.

According to her, the stopover allowed us to have people to talk to: "we are no longer alone when faced with a problem that is beyond all of us, no one knows how to react alone" when faced with drug addicts.

The mayor of the 10th arrondissement of Paris, Alexandra Cordebard, notes that since the creation of the room, there have been "zero deaths from overdoses in the neighborhood."

The stop provides "a much better quality of life with drugs," she says, believing that the system should be extended.

Equipment made available to visitors to the
Equipment made available to visitors to the Paris “shooting gallery” on the day of its inauguration on October 11, 2016 (POOL/AFP/Archives – PATRICK KOVARIK)

If this space were to close, "it would be a step backwards for both the people who have been using this room for years and for local residents," says Laure, a 23-year-old regular user who speaks in a jerky rhythm as she looks from one part of the room to another.

The young woman, who is addicted to opioids and has been homeless since she was 16, believes that "closing the theater will not stop the traffic at Gare du Nord anyway," since it has been in place "for more than 20 years."

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