“A man sidled up next to me, slowing his pace to match mine, waiting with me at a traffic light to cross,” *Nina, a resident in her thirties, recalled a recent incident that occurred in Rue de Hollerich early in the evening. “He asked if I’m married. I said “no” and he followed up asking if we could be friends to which I just replied “no” again, not looking at him. He kept walking behind me as we approached my car, which I didn’t want him to get close to. I took out my phone to call a friend.”
Nina, who said she generally considers Luxembourg to be “comparatively safe”, says this sort of scenario is not limited to Luxembourg. What makes it a talking point now is that because of the curfew and shop closures in the area, the district has become a meeting point for drug addicts, the homeless and, in some instances, opportunists.
“For them, the street here has become like their home,” says *Anna, a businessowner in the district. “I’m quite careful in that I just avoid looking at them. I create a wall around myself, but I often think of my customers. It can be quite alarming when you see strange people,” she says. Anna says she is in regular contact with neighbouring businesses and with the police, who frequently patrol the area. “But the police need more help.” She supports the idea of employing private security agents to complement police officers. “I prefer to have that so whatever could happen, straight away there is someone to help,” she says.
Stéphanie compared parts of the district to "a ghetto". Photo: Nader Ghavami.
Stéphanie, a mother who has lived in the neighbourhood for a decade, agrees. “I say put in more CCTV and agents […] The fact that shops are closing on Avenue de la Gare, I find it’s turning into a ghetto,” she explains. In the past, she walked home late at night but now will not leave home without the car even to drive to the pharmacy a few blocks away. “I don’t know if it’s me that’s changed, because I have a child, or because of the curfew.” Stéphanie stresses that the situation is “nothing compared to Paris”, but also points out that she has friends who have been verbally abused in the area.
The Luxembourg City shopkeepers’ union, the UCVL, also supports the idea of security agent street patrols and social worker teams. Director Anne Darin says that these actions “complement the work of police”. But she recognises that the problems are not new and, if anything, have been aggravated by the pandemic.
Interior security officer Henri Kox (déi Gréng) is pictured during a visit to the district in May 2021. Photo: Luxembourg Police handout
“We think that the presence of police patrols on foot in the neighborhood all day should be reinforced,” she told Delano, adding: “We are also working with the city on commercial vacancy with window embellishment and pop-up store projects.”
Nina, meanwhile, would like to see better street lighting, “especially where there are construction sites that limit visibility for pedestrians. Another idea would be a police hotline for these kind of harassment situations. I don’t want to call 113--it’s not exactly an actual emergency. But at least you would have someone to speak to, report when and where this happened with a description of the culprit,” she says.