A police van is now stationed near the library where they have gathered in recent months. Thus dispersing the isolated minors of Goutte-d’Or. A few dozen still present, who roam the streets to the chagrin of traders and residents worn out by this complicated cohabitation in this 18th century district.e borough of Paris.
The one who saw Moroccan minors arrive in Paris at the end of 2016. “Kids aged 11-12, sometimes seeming to be 8!” “, recalls the mayor PS, Éric Lejoindre. To the “Astonishment” of residents quickly add to tensions with these children “Refusing all help”. Often “Drug addicts” and “Violent”, they live off “Theft (theft of bags, phones, etc.)” and sleep “In squats”.
In this popular area, between Gare du Nord and the A1 motorway, which “Sees a lot of people pass through and then concentrates phenomena which then impact the rest of the country (crisis in the reception of migrants, traffic, etc.), the one minors worried ”. Actions by associations, international cooperation, etc … have helped to better understand the phenomenon, without allowing it to be resolved.
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Unaccompanied minors: young people in survival mode, whatever the cost
Police presence at the foot of the Barbès-Rochechouart metro station in Paris, February 23, 2021. © Daniel Fouray / Ouest-France
There is “Still around fifty young people at La Goutte-d’Or”, underlines Emmanuelle Oster, commissioner of the XVIIIe. Police pressure “Sometimes pushes them away from Paris. Some go to the provinces. But others are arriving in waves, especially since last summer ”, she said, adding that the situation has changed a lot in four years.
Read also: Moroccan police officers sent to Paris to identify wandering minors
“For the most part, they are no longer minors”
His police station, which has long dealt with the procedures concerning these young people in the capital, notes that they “Are no longer, for the most part, minor as at the beginning of the phenomenon”. They “Are not isolated and remain in contact with their families”. The ” mostly, finally, no longer arrive Morocco but from the Maghreb in general, and manyAlgeria. »
They “Explain to us coming for” the French Eldorado “”, continues Emmanuelle Oster. We tell them that at home, so they leave with the idea of making money ”. Passing through Spain, these young people “Then join Barbès-Goutte-d’Or, in Paris.” »
Are they exploited by criminal networks? “There have been a few cases in the provinces where people maintained their drug addiction to encourage them to steal for them. But nothing has so far been proven in Paris ”, insists the commissioner. Difficult investigations continue. Targeting, among other things, drugs sometimes sold in the street, which “Are not counterfeit and remain difficult to obtain”.
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