“The deal point near me generated between 15,000 and 20,000 euros per day” – L’Express

In spring 2023, Siam Spencer, independent journalist, moves to Nice for a professional opportunity. Faced with high rent prices in the city center, the young woman decided to rent a shared apartment in the Moulins district, known for hosting “La Laverie”, one of the biggest deal points in the Alpes-Maritimes. The reputation of the place, considered a “sensitive neighborhood”, does not impress him. For several months, the journalist witnessed, live, the operation of the deal point located a few meters from her home. While going shopping, she passes in front of these “little hands” of the network, sometimes aged 12, 13 or 14, who lie in wait for the police or serve customers “of all ages and all socio-professional categories”.

From her apartment, she observes the game of “cat and mouse” between the police and the traffickers, the weariness of the residents, the unsanitary conditions of the neighborhood, the violence of everyday life. Then decided to write a book, which was published this November 14 by Robert Laffont. In The LaundromatSiam Spencer thus describes his awakenings to the sound of Kalashnikov bursts, the deal becoming commonplace, the abandonment of public policies, the trap of recruitment by traffickers and the omnipresent and exponential influence “of the network”. Interview.

L’Express: From the first chapter of your book, you evoke the daily life tinged with violence that you observed at Les Moulins, in particular describing the gusts that woke you up on your first night in the apartment. How did this violence take hold in the neighborhood, and what is its impact on the daily lives of residents?

Siam Spencer: This violence is both very shocking and insidious. My first awakening is very significant, because I am awakened for the first time in my life by these famous gunshots. I remember what I felt every second, the moment is frozen in my memory, there is an almost traumatic side. At first I told myself that I had to go out to help anyone who might be injured. In fact, the people outside were mostly calm. There was then this shift in my head, when I understood that if no one was panicking, I shouldn’t panic either – in a way, it had to be considered “normal”.

This is why I speak of insidious violence: the inhabitants of Les Moulins have become accustomed to this type of scene, little by little. There, as in many similar neighborhoods, there have always been little thugs, fights, small deals. But from the beginning of the 2000s, drug trafficking developed and organized, and the violence increased, slowly, until people no longer really reacted. At the beginning, there were no guns, so no bursts, no settling of scores. Then the weapons arrived around the mid-2010s, while the network continued to grow, with increasingly violent attacks, and even a death in 2022.

Obviously, we can have elderly people who remain very surprised and shocked after violence or a gunshot, mothers who play in the children’s playpen and will panic at that moment, or events which remain in memory of all the inhabitants. But these events still remain normalized, even justified: for example, when a young person from the neighborhood tried to break down my door, thinking that my apartment was abandoned to make a possible squat, I immediately spoke to my friends about it. neighbors. They weren’t surprised. They told me “You’re new here, they must have spotted you”, with a form of habit when faced with this type of facts.

This violence stems in particular from drug trafficking, crystallized by the presence of the famous Moulins dealing point, nicknamed “La Laverie”. How would you describe the impact of the presence of this traffic on the neighborhood, and its evolution over time?

This deal point, which was 30 meters from my window, generates between 15,000 and 20,000 euros per day. Everyone knows it exists, and it obviously looms over the neighborhood: there is money at stake, strong demand with more and more consumers, of all ages and all socio-professional categories. There was simply a market to be had, and it was taken by little thugs who began to organize themselves, and to give new proportions to the traffic. They began to fight to keep the deal point, with violence, revenge, shootings to impress… Even if the different clans remain difficult to identify. In Marseille, there are clearly specific networks, with their names, their logos… But in Nice it’s a little more vague, it moves much faster, we can’t really know who owns this or that deal point . And the competition is not as visible as in Marseille.

In your book, you describe at length the omnipresence of lookouts in the neighborhood, who warn in particular of the presence of the police. What are the relationships between traffickers and law enforcement in Les Moulins?

For a long time, there was a small local police station in the heart of Les Moulins. A former police officer explained to me that there was a lot of dialogue between the officers and the residents, and that despite the little thugs, everyone communicated quite well. In 2008, a larger police station was built outside the district. Relations became strained, the riots of 2005 were there, traffic intensified. Today, it’s literally a game of cat and mouse. The police come by, the dealers throw away the drugs, the patrols try to recover the packages, then come the next day to do a patrol around the deal point. Their presence solves nothing.

Among the residents, everyone obviously has their own opinion on the issue: there are those who would almost like the army to intervene, and those who find that a stronger police presence would be of no use. There is a form of anger towards this impotence: I think back, for example, to the “Place Net” operations organized by the Ministry of the Interior, some of which took place in Les Moulins. During the time they lasted, the deal calmed down: I remember a little kid telling me that he was no longer selling anything, that it had become “a hassle”. But at the same time, the development of online deliveries and the famous “Uber shit” has grown tenfold, with another way of selling taking hold, more and more consumers, greater financial stakes, and therefore greater violence to recover the deal point.

You mention precisely the little hands who keep this point of deal alive, like Matteo, whom you describe as “the young neighborhood delinquent par excellence: minor, drug addict, not so bad, withdrawn and out of school”. Who are these traffic “pawns”?

In Moulins, there are two types of minors: unaccompanied minors (UMAs), first. They are vulnerable, alone, young, impressionable and insecure – everything the network is looking for. When they arrive in France, many wait several months in hotels or hostels, and that’s where they come to pick them up. We offer them fifty euros a day, we intimidate them, or both. They fall into the deal, then get used to a form of comfort, or get trapped by debt. And then there are the local young people, who grew up there, and are exposed to the network through bad company. It’s a friend’s brother or a cousin who will make them smoke their first joint at 10, 12, or 14 years old… Then they start hanging around the Laundromat, wanting to buy their own drinks, get a salary. And that’s how they get bullied.

I really had the feeling that none of these “little hands”, whether for unaccompanied minors or young people in the neighborhood, were really aware of the risks. When I talked about it with them, most of them replied: “I’ll be fine”, “I’ll get through it”, “Then I’ll have a nice car, I can go and live my life and be happy”… He there is a real unconsciousness, particularly motivated by a group phenomenon.

What is the involvement of parents or adults in order to prevent the youngest from being “alpagated” by the network?

We often hear about parental responsibility, but I noticed during my immersion that most parents are completely unaware of what is happening. I’m thinking of a little watchman who was more or less raised by his grandmother, who was very far from imagining that he could be part of the network. And then we must not forget that they are children: they do stupid things without their parents seeing them, like anywhere else… Except that we are in Les Moulins. And the stupidities there have much bigger consequences. This is also why the associative presence is essential, to create a buffer between what is happening in the neighborhood and the families, to keep the link with these young people, to try to get them out of the network by other means.

You precisely describe the abandonment of public policies and the State in this neighborhood: the unsanitary conditions, the dirt, the lack of social support… What is the impact of this feeling of abandonment in the daily lives of the residents?

The feeling is terrible, and three-quarters of the time translates into anger. It’s a feeling of being a second-class citizen, with a broken elevator while you live on the 15th floor, a life among cockroaches and rats, the hot water cut off regularly… Even though ten minutes from tram, you are facing the largest palaces in Nice. Many residents also work in these places, with a contrast in lifestyles that fuels this anger. The network can benefit from this frustration, for example with the phenomenon of nanny apartments. Traffickers come to offer residents the key to their homes in exchange for payment, to hide drugs or members of the network during police raids. People quickly do the math, tell themselves that they will be “helped” financially for a small service… And they too fall into illegality.