Eric Piolle wants to "break up the rich ghettos": "He's out of touch," denounces this police officer

"What we are trying to do is break up the ghettos. But we must remember that the ghettos are mainly ghettos for the rich! The problem in the city of Grenoble is not the extraordinary and stimulating diversity that there is in La Villeneuve, but these spaces where there is no social housing at all," declared the mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle , on July 31 in Le Dauphiné Libéré .

These comments were shared by the Green mayor, who reaffirmed last Wednesday on RTL that he aimed for the city to have 30% social housing. Grenoble reached the 25% threshold imposed by the SRU (Solidarity and Urban Renewal) law by the end of 2024, compared to 21.7% when he arrived in 2014, as Libération points out.

Eric Piolle, the Green mayor of Grenoble, pointed to this statement on RTL. "He denounces it, but he's in charge of the fight. So where is his plan to fight drugs?" he asks.

On RTL, the mayor also pointed the finger at Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau : "We are trying to fight against traffickers, but in fact, we are seeing a rise in violence almost everywhere in the country. We are now seeing medium-sized towns, rural towns that are affected not only by consumption but also by trafficking," Eric Piolle criticized.

"I'll have to be shown the rich ghettos," mocks Guy, an oilman.

These comments are incomprehensible to Guy, a Grenoble police officer. "I react like most people in Grenoble: this man is completely out of touch, he doesn't understand the reality of what's happening on the ground in Grenoble," he said on Monday on Les Grandes Gueules . "There has always been social diversity. There are neighborhoods. I don't see what more it will bring to Grenoble."

"What I see is the delinquency in the neighborhoods, the omnipresent drug trafficking, the serious crime, the big criminal gang and the mafia that are constantly increasing," Guy continues. "Let's just say that during Piolle's term, it accelerated. He wanted to make Grenoble the European capital of ecology... We see the results, by turning a blind eye to cronyism," he accuses.

Regarding "rich ghettos," Éric Piolle did not mention specific neighborhoods. "There are a few pockets in the city center, there are a few pockets on a Grenoble scale in certain neighborhoods, but there are quite a few of them," he conceded on RTL.