Paris Dispatch

A Crack Neighborhood in Paris.

At La Colline, crack is available and on open display 24/7. Hundreds come every day to buy a smokable rock, known as a “galette” in French, for 15 euros, or about $17. Dozens of addicts live there in makeshift tents, mingling with the homeless migrants who also populate the area.

Every Tuesday, the police clear out the entire area and raze the makeshift slum. But it inevitably grows back a few hours later.

Drug users engage in prostitution in public toilets as children go to school in the morning, while fights occur daily, as traffickers sometimes beat one another with construction cables, or drug users fight over galettes with pocket blades.

“You can forget about the Paris of Woody Allen,” said a police officer who has patrolled La Colline every day for the past couple of years, referring to the director’s film “Midnight in Paris.” “We couldn’t be further from that.”