Posted On December 24, 2024
Grenoble crosses yet another threshold: for the first time in 15 years, since the riots which engulfed Villeneuve in 2010, police officers were the target of live ammunition in the Mistral district last Thursday. A new peak in the escalation of violence.
HABITUAL VIOLENCE…
Thursday, after the arrest of a 17-year-old drug dealer in Mistral, the police were the target of firework mortars by dozens of delinquents who rioted for hours. Mortars in chaos, attempts to erect roadblocks with burning trash cans… Until now, this type of scene has unfortunately become the norm in Grenoble, in all neighborhoods under the influence of drug trafficking.
… GOES UP ANOTHER NOTCH
With significant news: one of the rioters took out a handgun to fire live ammunition, brushing past the police. “ This is the first time since the Villeneuve riots in 2010 that the police have been shot at in the Grenoble metropolitan area during an operation in a sensitive neighborhood (…) they completely lose track of things, they are now ready to kill police officers to save their business » explains one of them to Denis Masliah from Dauphiné Libéré. Stéphane Gianesello, from the Alliance union, confirms: “they are in fact less and less afraid“How could it be otherwise in a city where elected officials theorize inaction in the face of endemic violence?
VILLENEUVE: DEALERS SET AN APARTMENT ON FIRE
If Mistral is a symbol of Grenoble's security difficulties, the entire city is concerned. Two days after the dealers' show of force, last Saturday, it was in Villeneuve that firefighters called to a trash fire were caught in an ambush involving mortar fire. One of them ended up in an apartment in the Arlequin gallery, causing a major fire. Although no injuries were reported, 4 people had to be evacuated from the accommodation. Innocent Grenoble residents pay the price of the law that the gangs impose: materially in this case, but all this will inevitably end in a much more dramatic way.
THE IRRESPONSIBILITY OF THE GREEN/LFI
And meanwhile, since their arrival at the helm in 2014, the Grenoble Greens/LFI have only promoted an idealized vision of security, speaking only of “dialogue” and “prevention”. Not only do they stand out for their lack of results in this area (and even attack socio-cultural structures essential for prevention, such as the Plateau in Mistral or the MJC/Prémol theater in the Olympic Village). But this posture is also a matter of optimism: the absence of firm positions against traffickers leaves Grenoblois disarmed in the face of violence that knows no brakes.
ABANDONED INHABITANTS
Testimonies from residents are multiplying, each time with this observation of abandonment. Thus, the week of December 9, the yoga class which is usually held in the Lys Rouge room, in the district of the same name, could not take place because the city-owned room was squatted by drug dealers in the area who had probably too cold outside. Rather than freeing the dealers, the municipality moved the courses to another facility and let the delinquents take over its property…
THE DISPROPORTION BETWEEN MUNICIPAL INITIATIVES AND NEEDS
At the same time, elected officials are communicating about a “public space brigade” or a “neighborhood police” at the Olympic Village: agents whose main mission is to fine improperly parked vehicles, report illegal dumping, etc. As for the mediators, we find a terrible disproportion between these unarmed agents, and the degree of violence of which the gangs who compete in Grenoble for control of drug trafficking are capable.
OTHER CITIES ARE ACTING
There is, again, a Grenoble specificity since cities like Lyon or Bordeaux, also run by environmentalists, are adapting to reality and trying to take pragmatic measures to strengthen security. While in Grenoble the arming of the municipal police and the development of video surveillance remain taboos, the president of the metropolis of Lyon Bruno Bernard assumes that cameras have reduced delinquency in transport, and the Mayor of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic turned around and equipped its municipal police with lethal weapons.
THE COST OF INSECURITY
The insecurity that this municipality allows to flourish not only has a human cost, but also a financial one. Between overpriced security and recurring damage to public facilities, Grenoble residents pay dearly for the ambient chaos. For example, just securing the Iris site in Villeneuve represented a third of the total cost of the work. Municipal finances, already bloodless, are being hit hard by the refusal of elected officials to take up the subject.
THE TIME IS NO LONGER FOR IDEOLOGY
Insecurity today represents too heavy a weight in Grenoble (for residents, for public finances, also in terms of the city's image) not to go beyond ideologies and tackle it seriously. It is in this sense that Alain Carignon, President of the opposition group, wrote to the Mayor at the beginning of September to suggest that he open a dialogue to select some solutions that would allow us to move forward. The year is ending and this hand extended in the interest of the people of Grenoble has remained unanswered.
CITIZEN AWARENESS?
While armed gangs are attacking the police with live ammunition, postures of denial cannot last long. Even in Saint-Bruno, a neighborhood where a very left-wing ambient culture reigns, residents are beginning to mobilize against the fear of a stray bullet against a backdrop of shootings for trafficking. We find in their questioning “public authorities“(way of diluting responsibilities) the outdated clichés about the refusal of”divisive speeches“, but they still wrote to Eric Piolle. It's a start.
Mentalities are therefore evolving little by little as the events in Grenoble continue. To the detriment of those who, like the Greens/LFI, remain entangled in disconnected ideological software. 15 months before the municipal elections, the wind is not blowing behind the backs of the Piollists who are incapable of adapting to reality.
