Cité des Rosiers, when dealers set up roadblocks to control drug trafficking

At the end of March, drug traffickers have since set up “checkpoints” to control vehicles entering and leaving the city of Rosiers, in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille. The inhabitants of the condominium, who live in unsanitary conditions and insecurity, are exasperated.

France has been deconfined since May 11. Not the city of Roses.

“How can we live with the children, there is no park, no garden… we have to confine them. There is no light at night, we are afraid”, confides a resident on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Concessionaires control entrances and exits

At the entrance to the 750-unit condominium, since the end of March, drug traffickers have installed makeshift roadblocks. Cars slalom between trash cans and chairs. An improvised checkpoint.

“They closed the road. When you arrive in the city, you have to stop, explains the resident, they look at the car, if you have something chosen”.

We have to control, everyone has to do it.

To guide them to the place of sale of the drug, buyers follow a signposted route. Difficult to assess.

“The moulaga is over there”indicates a green tag on the facade, at the foot of a building that houses the stup plan.

“A checkpoint is something legal, but here we are faced with people who hinder the movement of others to carry out their traffic, and therefore it is obviously completely illegal”, points to the prefect of police.

“Very regularly, the police will, with the help of social landlords, free these entry points, says Emmanuel Barbe, then they are fairly quickly reconstituted”.

“The police always enter the estates to arrest drug dealers, and they have found this way to defend themselves.

We can’t tolerate it, it’s taking the population hostage.

But tracking down dealers is not enough, according to the prefect.

“We must ask ourselves the question of buyers who perform in the estates, he says. To make a deal, you need a seller and a buyer.

“That’s a question we’ve begun to answer during confinementby controlling the derogatory certificates a lot and by penalizing drug buyers enormously”, he explains.

A city abandoned

The trafics, and violence which goes with it, have been conditioning the life of the Rosebushes for years.

“We were left behind”, harshly judge a resident. For the LREM MP for the Alexandra Louis sector, “it’s hell”.

Last year, the elected official has already challenged the town hall, the Metropolis and the State and called for an emergency plan for the city of the northern districts.

“Traffic goes where we let it prosper, she believes. What is needed is to tackle the basic problems, the social problems, the security problems, and the problems of the building, with a management of this trustee which is not acceptable.

“The only thing that can stop this is the intervention of the public authorities, but at Rosiers, there is no will, while the solutions exist”.

“These people don’t vote, we don’t take care of them”, decides the parliamentarian who says she is ready to work on this file with all the candidates for mayor of Marseille.