Drug trafficking in Pissevin (Nîmes): €620,000 and 16 police officers, but doubts remain
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced on Thursday a new police station and reinforcements for the Pissevin neighbourhood in Nîmes, greeted with scepticism by unions and local figures.
Pissevin in Nîmes: the new police station divides officers, officials and associations
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez travelled to Nîmes on Thursday 4 June to announce a €620,000 grant intended for the creation of a police station in the priority neighbourhood of Pissevin, according to france3-regions.franceinfo.fr. Sixteen additional national police officers are also set to join the city on 1 September. While the mayor welcomed these announcements favourably, a police union and several figures on the ground judge the measures insufficient in the face of the scale of drug trafficking.
A new building following the 2024 fire
The future police station will be installed in the Kennedy South building, currently under construction along Kennedy Avenue. The State is financing the project to the tune of €620,000, and delivery is scheduled for September. This premises will accommodate both national police and municipal police, with the aim of strengthening cooperation between State and city services.
The project responds to a long-standing expectation: a first police office had been set on fire in August 2024, the day before its inauguration. The new station is presented as larger and permanent. "This is good news for the residents of the Pissevin neighbourhood," said the mayor of Nîmes, Vincent Bouget. "Public services, notably those responsible for security, are not abandoning the area. On the contrary, they are returning."
The mayor between satisfaction and caution
Regarding the personnel reinforcements, Vincent Bouget clarifies that two departures are already planned amongst the police officers currently in post, which would bring the net increase to 14 additional officers. The mayor himself acknowledges the limitations of these announcements. "It is doubtless not sufficient given the needs," he admits. He nevertheless defends a more comprehensive approach, recalling that Pissevin-Valdegour is home to approximately 16,000 residents. "Wherever one lives in this city, one has the same rights and the same consideration."
Bouget also underlines that security cannot alone constitute a lasting response. "It is not the existence of a police station that will eliminate trafficking. There must be a continuum of responses, and not simply security responses."
Union Unité 30 awaits concrete action
The union Unité 30 is much more reserved. Wissem Guesmi, assistant departmental secretary, makes his judgement conditional on the effective implementation of the measures. "Ministerial announcements are fine, we'll take them, but we need concrete action," he states.
The union raises in particular an ambiguity over the figure of 16 police officers announced. "The question is whether these 16 officers are in addition to the officers already planned for 1 September, or whether they include them," explains Guesmi. Regarding the police station itself, the union's position is clear: an empty building solves nothing. "Having an empty building is pointless. We need people to fill it."
Guesmi also points to a structural shortfall: according to him, the Gard department suffers above all from a deficit in judicial police officers, essential for advancing investigations. "On Nîmes, Alès and Bagnols, we are short of more than 40 judicial police officers." He describes exhausted teams. "My colleagues are tired. They are under constant pressure in the neighbourhood linked to drug trafficking, to crime that is exploding, and to a lack of staff."
Associations want a human presence, not walls
In the neighbourhood, civil society actors do not reject police reinforcement, but refuse to make it the sole response. Raouf Azzouz, director of the Mille Couleurs community centre, prioritises meeting spaces and adults present on the ground. "The priority for a community centre director is to have spaces where the population can gather," he explains.
He has been calling for more than a year for more educators and activity leaders. On police, his request focuses on a community presence, not on the building. "We wanted community policing, a human presence on the territory, to meet people, to talk, to exchange." He specifies that he is expecting "mobile policing, on the neighbourhood, which talks, which reassures."
Azzouz also mentions the announced closure of public services such as the Post Office. "A public service that disappears is giving way to traffickers. It is the Republic retreating."
A neighbourhood bereaved by trafficking-related violence
Pissevin remains marked by the murder of Fayed, 10 years old, killed by a stray bullet in August 2023 during rivalries linked to drug trafficking. Since this tragedy, several Interior Ministers have succeeded one another in the neighbourhood. According to Laurent Nuñez's entourage, 47 operations have been conducted in Pissevin since the start of the year, with the aim of disrupting dealing points and dismantling networks.
The police station could open by the end of the year, if work progresses as planned.
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)