where are we one year after the riots in Poitiers and Châtellerault?

It’s been almost a year since the neighborhoods of France were inflamed after the death of young Nahel. Poitiers and Châtellerault did not escape these urban riots that devastated Couronneries, Trois-Cités and Ozon mainly on the night of June 29 to 30, 2023. A year later, these neighborhoods continue to lick their wounds and heal their bruises on their souls. Where are we today?

In Chatellerault
the works
demolition will begin

In Ozon, the shopping center on Place Churchill had been completely ravaged by flames, becoming a sad wasteland in the middle of the neighborhood. Bruised residents have long feared a status quo. The municipality of Châtellerault announced, during a public meeting on June 20, 2024, the deconstruction in two stages of what remains of the shopping center. It was decided that demolition work would begin in September 2024 with first four cells around the Press Hall and the rest almost concurrently. The first deputy mayor, Maryse Lavrard, also revealed that the City would acquire the land and that the shopping center would not be rebuilt. It will be replaced by a green space. This complete redevelopment of Place Churchill is due to begin at the beginning of 2025. The affected traders will be reassigned to new commercial cells located near the old supermarket. The cost of the development work is estimated at one million euros.

In Poitiers, still uncertainty

In Couronneries and Trois-Cités, the two most affected districts of Poitiers (1), uncertainty remains, particularly concerning the progress of work at the two post offices and local police stations. State of affairs.

At the Coronaries. Many businesses and services have not reopened their doors. Some never will. Thus, the Crédit Mutuel bank branch, whose customers had been taken care of by the Chasseneuil-du-Poitou and Buxerolles branches while awaiting the restoration of the devastated building, will ultimately remain closed. Last March, the bank’s communications department confirmed this to us by email: “The decision not to reopen our agency in the Couronneries district has indeed been made. » An opportunity for La Poste, whose agency in Place Coimbra had been destroyed during the riots. In February, the mayor of Poitiers raised the possibility of the postal services moving into the former Crédit Mutuel premises. The regional management of La Poste has validated this option. But it takes time. Announced for the end of 2024, the opening of this new office should finally take place during 2025. The postal activity has, in the meantime, been taken over by a store.

Destroyed on the night of June 29 to 30, 2023, the police office was “replaced” by bi-weekly and weekly mobile services in the premises of the annexed town hall (Tuesday afternoons from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.) . The local police station must find its place in the neighborhood before the end of the year, a few months after the planned date.

The reopening of the shopping center that burned down a year ago remains on hold. If the damaged part (6 cells out of 32) was finally demolished at the beginning of 2024, there are questions in the neighborhood about the form and time frame that the reconstruction will take. “There is a huge wait for the reopening of the bakery and the tobacconist, and a lack because the butchery will not reopen”, residents told us at the end of May. The Poitevin municipality had planned to restructure this long-standing shopping center. The process was turned upside down by the events of the summer of 2023. Since the demolition, numerous discussions have taken place between the City, the trustee and the co-owners of the shopping center. It was decided by mutual agreement to conduct a feasibility study to assess an alternative scenario for a more ambitious and qualitative restructuring of the shopping center, over a necessarily longer time frame and with increased community intervention. The conclusions and proposals will be shared at the end of July with the center manager and the co-owners.

In the Three Cities. In the Trois-Cités district, the local police station had also been destroyed and the same temporary system as in Couronneries was put in place (permanence at the annex town hall on Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.) by the ‘State. The police office is due to reopen at the start of the school year, a few months late. Threatened with permanent closure, the Clos-Gauthier post office was finally saved on the edge thanks to citizen mobilization. It should regain its place in the district by the end of 2024.

(1) In Bel-Air, La Poste reopened at the beginning of November 2023 while the Instant mobile store rose from its ashes at La Demi-Lune in August 2023.