Police came knocking on doors at 8am on Tuesday 24 September. Residents of the Le Carrare building, a building taken over by drug dealers in the centre of the town of Echirolles (Isère), on the outskirts near Grenoble, were ordered to evacuate their homes within seventy-two hours and for a period of at least three weeks. “danger of death” For them, warns a municipal decree adopted the day before, due to the significant damage caused by drug traffickers who have been living in the building for several years. The municipal decree cites the report carried out by a security diagnostic company, delivered the day before and which highlights the danger “immediate and permanent” fire or electrocution suffered by residents.
In the corridors, the electrical networks have been completely exposed by drug traffickers, who use the wooden doors of the electrical boxes as fuel, to make braziers in the garbage containers. “These are offers that operate twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week throughout the year, for heating in winter or at night”“Explains Gilles Bonaventura, head of the municipal police in Echirolles. The emergency exits and staircases are blocked by rubbish, mattresses and furniture of all kinds. “This is placed there to block the passage of the police”explains Bonaventura, pointing to a bedside table in a hallway. On the ground floor, the access to the garages was completely sealed with a welder.
The situation has worsened in recent months, as shootings have multiplied during the summer in the Grenoble metropolitan area, amid a “gang war”In the words of Grenoble prosecutor Eric Vaillant. One of the most lucrative trading points in the city, the Le Carrare building saw its situation come to a standstill, with the presence of traders and exchanges of fire penalizing any attempt to carry out works and modernize the electrical network. The municipality of Echirolles published two security orders ordering the co-owners to do what was necessary, in May and July. In vain have they opposed its “financial incapacity” to take the necessary measures.
Two shootings in early August
With studios squatted by the agreement, others sublet at a high price, some with doors boarded up to stop squatters, the Le Carrare residence seems to be at a dead end. “When you live in Carrara, you have no other choice”whispers an official from the Echirolles town hall. “If I had known it was like this, I would never have come to live here.”says a 24-year-old who works in security and has been renting a studio in the building for just over a year. The distributors “He came to knock on my door, he threatened me, sometimes we found blood on the floor…”He explains. In early August, the building was the scene of at least two shootings that resulted in injuries.
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