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France to create a network of ‘safe consumption sites’ for drug addicts

France's health minister Olivier Véran has announced that two new shooting galleries will be created every year, as health authorities struggle to deal with problems caused by drug addicts.

Published: 29 September 2021 17:28 CEST

An employee prepares a users' kit at the supervised injection site in Strasbourg, one of two such facilities in France.

“We have approved funds to finance treatment and addiction centres,” Véran told France Inter radio on Wednesday. “I will provide health and social teams to wean off consumers who are currently on the street.”

As part of the project, the safe consumption rooms have been re-dubbed haltes soin/addiction – recovery/addiction centres (halte can be interpreted as a place to rest, or an order to stop), although they are also popularly referred to as salles de shoot (shooting galleries).

In a letter read out during a Fédération Addiction conference last week, Véran wrote that the goal of the new terminology was to “be done with the caricatures about ‘shooting galleries’ and concentrate on care”.

.@olivierveran : "Côté gouvernement, nous avons entériné des moyens pour financer des haltes soin/addiction" pour les consommateurs de crack à Paris #le79inter pic.twitter.com/AciJmojiBV

— France Inter (@franceinter) September 29, 2021

Extending the network

Véran said two new centres would be created each year at a national level. A law from 2016 authorises the creation of low-risk consumption rooms, but so far just two have been set up – one in Paris and one in Strasbourg. Those test facilities were due to run until 2022, but the government announced last week that they would be extended until 2025.

“I myself was an MP in 2015, involved in the creation of the first consumption room in Strasbourg and things are going very well,” he said.

“We therefore have proof that in our country this type of structure, providing support for withdrawal to avoid risk and unsanitary conditions and to better support the most vulnerable people, works.

In August, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans to create four new facilities in the capital. On September 15th, Prime Minister Jean Castex gave the green light for three of the four sites, but after discussions city hall decided to abandon the fourth site, which was due to be situated on rue Pelleport in the 20th arrondissement.

Crack smokers light their crack pipes on the docks at Stalingrad Square in Paris.

Crack smokers light their crack pipes on the docks at Stalingrad Square in Paris. Photo: JOEL SAGET / AFP.

The proposition had drawn criticism from local residents, who complained the site was too close to a school.

“We need coherent proposals for sites, meaning not 15 metres from a nursery or primary school,” Véran said on Wednesday.

Crack consumption is a long-standing problem in Paris, and users were once again evacuated from the jardins d’Eole and Stalingrad areas, towards Porte de la Villette in the 19th arrondissement on Friday.

Residents of the Pantin suburb of Paris denounced a “wall of shame” over the weekend, after authorities bricked up a tunnel under the Paris ring road to stop dispersed addicts from moving out of the capital.

How France compares to its neighbours

“France had fallen 40 years behind. The first low-risk consumption room in Geneva is more than 40 years old,” Véran told France Inter.

In fact, Europe’s first supervised drug consumption room was opened in Berne, Switzerland in 1986. In the 35 years since then, the concept has spread throughout the continent.

There are currently 78 official facilities spread across seven of the countries which report to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) – that includes the EU27 as well as third countries such as Switzerland and Norway.

In 2018, in addition to France’s two centres, there were: 31 facilities in 25 cities in the Netherlands; 24 in 15 cities in Germany; five in four cities in Denmark, 13 in seven cities in Spain; two in two cities in Norway; one in Luxembourg; and 12 in eight cities in Switzerland, mostly in German-speaking areas.

A map shows the locations of 78 safe drug consumption facilities in Europe. — *Map: EMCDDA*

As well as clean injection equipment and health advice, many of the centres offer access to primary healthcare and the possibility to take a shower and wash clothes.

According to the EMCDDA, “There is no evidence to suggest that the availability of safer injecting facilities increases drug use or frequency of injecting. These services facilitate rather than delay treatment entry and do not result in higher rates of local drug-related crime.”

The EU agency highlights the effectiveness of drug consumption facilities to “reach and stay in contact with highly marginalised target populations”, while the presence of facilities has also been shown to reduce behaviours such as syringe sharing that increase the risk of HIV transmission and overdose death.

While plans for drug facilities in Paris have proved controversial with residents, where centres do exist, they have been linked to a decrease in public injecting.

“In Barcelona, a fourfold reduction was reported in the number of unsafely disposed syringes being collected in the vicinity from a monthly average of over 13 000 in 2004 to around 3 000 in 2012,” the EMCDDA states.

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The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is currently far ahead in opinion polls for the June 9th elections in France, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party in a battle for second place with the Socialists.

The debate between Attal, 35, and Bardella, 28, who leads the RN’s list in the EU elections, will be the first head-to-head clash between the two leading figures in a new French political generation.

Polls have been making increasingly uncomfortable reading for Macron, who has had to fly to the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia to try to calm the violent unrest there.

Coming third would be a disaster for the president, who portrays himself as a champion of European democracy and bulwark against the far right.

The head of Macron’s party list for the elections, the little known Valérie Heyer, has failed to make an impact and was widely seen as losing a debate with Bardella earlier this month.

According to a Toluna-Harris Interactive study for French media, the presidential camp is stuck at just 15 percent of the vote and in a dogfight for second place with the Socialists – who are on 14.5 percent – led by former commentator Raphael Glucksmann.

The RN, by contrast, is soaring ahead on 31.5 percent.

The RN’s figurehead Marine Le Pen, who has waged three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, has sought to bring the RN into the political mainstream as she eyes another tilt at the presidency in 2027.

“There is a very clear signal that must be sent to Emmanuel Macron. He must suffer the worst possible defeat to bring him back to earth,” Le Pen told CNews and Europe 1 this week.

Bardella, who took over the party leadership from his mentor, is key to Le Pen’s strategy, a gifted communicator of immigrant origin with an expanding following on TikTok.

Attal, also one of the best debaters in Macron’s government, is expected to seek to portray Bardella as an extremist, complacent over the threat posed by Russia and who has little interest in Europe.

Apparently aware of the danger, Bardella on Tuesday said the RN will no longer sit in the EU parliament with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies.

The head of the AfD’s list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview that someone who had been a member of the SS in Nazi Germany was “not automatically a criminal”.

Bardella is “putting his credibility and the future of his movement on the line in the debate”, said the Le Monde daily, adding that a strong performance could see some RN supporters regard him as a stronger candidate in 2027 than Le Pen.

You can find a more detailed profile of Attal HERE and a look at Bardella HERE