“We don't know what to say, we don't know what to do, we feel desperate! I hope that next time things will have changed, but I have the impression that they are getting worse,” said a resident of the train station area. (Photo: Matic Zorman/Maison Moderne)

“We don't know what to say, we don't know what to do, we feel desperate! I hope that next time things will have changed, but I have the impression that they are getting worse,” said a resident of the train station area. (Photo: Matic Zorman/Maison Moderne)

Two years after a first meeting with the residents of the Gare district on the issue of security, nothing has changed. Internal security minister Henri Kox presented a package of measures against drug-related crime, but without convincing his audience.

“Two years later, a new minister, but still nothing!” This was all it took to trigger a round of applause in the omnisport hall at Rue de Strasbourg, which on the evening of 1 December brought together between 300 and 400 residents of the Gare district to discuss the issue of security.

After a first meeting in 2019 on the same topic, the Minister of Internal Security has indeed changed: Henri Kox (déi Gréng) has replaced François Bausch (déi Gréng). But the observations of the inhabitants remain the same: a deep feeling of insecurity in these few streets where drug dealers, drug addicts and prostitutes can be seen regularly.

Shopkeepers are still worried, residents still have to step over people sleeping in their entrance halls before reaching their homes, and pedestrians still feel perturbed by drug dealers in the streets.

Package of measures

In an attempt to solve the problem, Minister Henri Kox presented a legislative package on drug-related crime. It is a patchwork of measures combining “preventive and repressive measures”, a “holistic approach” and “shared responsibility”.

More specifically, it pertains to the intensifying of of police officers’ recruitment, increasing their visibility to improve the residents’ feeling of security, placing video surveillance cameras or even modifying the law to allow police officers to move people who obstruct access to a building.

But no local resident seems to be really satisfied with such measures. If one person wants police patrols from 9pm, another wants them from 5pm and a third wants them “permanently”. While another joked about police presence, arguing that “we don't need police in orange, we can see them from 500 metres away, so the dealers can too!”

The same problem

The same applies to cameras. While their effectiveness is undeniable for some, others have no doubt about their uselessness. Some see drugs and prostitution as an unsolvable problem--so we might as well stop all repressive policies and concentrate on social and preventive measures. “There are so many facets to this problem that the police alone do not have all the means to solve it,” admits Philippe Schrantz, Director General of the police.

“We feel desperate!”

“We don't know what to say, we don't know what to do, we feel desperate! I hope that next time things will have changed, but I have the impression that they are getting worse,” said a young woman who only feels safe in the streets because she has her “big dog” with her. The mayor of Luxembourg City, Lydie Polfer (DP), herself seemed doubtful: “We're going in circles, we're going in circles, we have to get out”, she was heard saying.

To Kox, who promised to come back in a year's time to take stock of his new measures, a shopkeeper simply replied: “Wait another year. One more shop will have closed.”

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.