Celebrate diversity!
“‘We are terrified, help us’: in Nice, the inhabitants of an ‘infernal tower’ subjected to the laws of drug trafficking,” translated from “«Nous sommes terrorisés, aidez-nous» : à Nice, les habitants d’une «tour infernale» soumis aux lois du trafic de drogue,” by Nicolas Daguin and Lucas Hélin, Le Figaro, April 8, 2023:
INVESTIGATION – Traffic in broad daylight and at all hours, degradation, intimidation and threats… For several years, the Mercantour collective has been fighting for the authorities to intervene and put an end to the reign of drug traffickers in this eastern district of Nice.
To feel observed is one thing. Being stared at by a few hooded young men dressed in black is another. Even more when one of them holds a hammer in his hand. Some speak of a “climate of insecurity.” In the city of Bon Voyage, road to Turin, northeast of Nice, the weather is constantly stormy. At the foot of the gray towers, the atmosphere is both heavy and electric. Three knocks suddenly ring out in this late spring morning. And then silence. It is not lightning but the man with the hammer which has just struck the concrete of a staircase. This is a ritual – which however has nothing religious about it despite the fact that the neighborhood is nicknamed “the Church.” The dealers of tower 21 Mercantour now know that customers are waiting.
There are already seven of them, huddled together in front of the building, barely hidden behind a pyramid of mailboxes. Men only. The youngest is barely of age, the oldest must be around sixty years old. It looks like a GP’s waiting room. All that’s missing is a coffee table and a few somewhat dated gossip magazines. The discussion begins. “They have to get excited, the “schmitts” (the police, Editor’s note) will not be long,” asserts one of them. “They won’t come today, I think they’re at Les Moulins,” replies another, a packet of crisps in his hand. “Have you seen the video? In my opinion, the one who filmed is going to be smoked,” adds a third. A few days earlier, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes and president of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti, had published on Twitter a sequence shot by a resident of the sensitive district of Les Moulins, at the other end of the city. In this one, two men wander in the middle of the street, weapons in hand. Drug traffickers, arrested the same day and indicted.
After about ten minutes, two dealers appear. The dress code is the same. Only the eyes are visible. The first has the jogging pockets full of sachets of cocaine, the second of cannabis resin. Two lines are formed, powder “sniffers” on one side, stoners on the other. In the “Church”, drugs are sold like the priest distributes the host. The transaction is done calmly, without urgency and above all under the noses of a few impassive inhabitants. The latter are not accomplices but resigned, even frightened. Such is the ordinary chronicle of the disintegration of a district, as it exists in the four corners of France, delivered into the hands of delinquency and drug trafficking.
Moreover, at 21 Mercantour, some still refuse to resign. Some tenants are fighting for the crowing of the rooster to replace the “Arah!,” the shrill cry that dealers use to warn each other when the police arrive. Created in 2019, the Mercantour collective now brings together around ten families. “We have so much to say, but insecurity remains the number one problem. We are terrified, help us, ”begs the collective in one of the letters it sends to Figaro. A meeting is quickly organized. Not in the city because “too dangerous”. “Anonymity is our ultimate protection, reprisals can be extremely serious. We risk vandalism and more serious threats, being injured or killed”, assures Antoine *, a tenant of this “infernal tower”.
It is therefore around a coffee in the city center that the young man, aged about thirty, testifies. “We are victims of a mafia like in the towns of Lower Sicily,” he laments. The small dealers of a few years ago have given way to violent, disrespectful and armed gangs. They are there 24/7. They set up chairs at the entrance to the tower and are seated from morning till night. The housekeeper says nothing to them and passes the broom between their chairs so as not to disturb them….
Jim says
The answer to problems in the Near East is not to import mass numbers of people belonging to the dominant religion of that region. No matter how much pity people have or how much cheap labor we n eed.
Hank says
If France wants Law & Order and a safe society, they could take a hint from Singapore. The death penalty is mandatory for drug deallers. Drug dealers are hanged within a year or two at the most.
bill says
You are right the only way to deal with drug dealers is to execute all of them. The job would become so lethal nobody would want to do it. Of course that means evry country
JimJFox says
Singapore authorities have cojones, no western country has except the Visigrad 4. You don’t mess with Singapore!
tim gallagher says
France seems very far gone down the road to destruction because having 8 to 9% Muslims is a complete disaster for any civilised nation. You are bound to end up with situations like the one in this report. Hungary and those other Visegrad bloc countries, though they no doubt have problems, will not have to put up with this sort of crap.