The mayor of the French commune of Puget-Théniers justified a curfew on minors, saying that a “change in the population” led to a rise in delinquency.
Mayor Robert Velay enacted the curfew on under-17s in late August, which sees all unaccompanied minors prohibited from being out in the 2,000-person village from 10 pm to 6 am, Nice-Matin reports.
“This decree is to counter the delinquency of young people. The gendarmerie and the town hall were crumbling under complaints. One night, we stood guard at the pool, and we caught teenagers in the act of breaking and entering. They were brought to the gendarmerie, and they told us that they could not do anything because they were minors,” Mr Velay said.
“There is a change of population in the village, with more and more families in distress and kids whose parents do not care… Some teenagers, 13 to 15 years old, who bring in friends and delinquency,” he said. He added: “They take over the streets and use it as a party venue at one in the morning. It could not continue like that.”
Problems with minors, particularly migrant minors, has been an issue elsewhere in France, especially in Paris. In the French capital, bands of Moroccan minors terrorised residents in the areas of La Chapelle, Goutte-d’Or, and Barbès with locals claiming young men were robbing and intimidating them.
The complaints led to Paris police working with police from Morocco to try and identify the migrant minors in efforts to deport them to Morocco.
Last year, Paris police arrested 1,552 Morrocan migrant minors by the end of October — a 41 per cent increase on the year before. At least 42 of the detained migrants also turned out to be adults rather than children.
Despite the increase in arrests, authorities were able to send back only six Moroccans to their native country.