As part of an action plan to address problems in the troubled Paris suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis, the French government has offered 10,000 euros to public workers to remain working in the area.
The proposal is one of 23 measures presented by the government this week to help the area, which is the poorest department in the entire country and will also see the recruitment of another 150 police officers to help maintain order in the area, Le Figaro reports.
The government of President Emmanuel Macron is also looking to improve housing conditions in the area for local residents.
The 10,000 euro bonus will be eligible for various public sector workers including teachers as studies revealed that the turnover rate int he area is much higher than other parts of France, with Ministry of the Interior workers staying just 2.7 years there on average compared to Essonne, for example, where the rate is seven years.
A similar proposal was made in so-called “vulnerable areas”, often referred to as no-go zones, in Sweden, where the government offered teachers a salary increase of £848/$1,077 per month to remain working in the often crime-ridden and economically disadvantaged areas.
The Seine-Saint-Denis plan comes after months of studies by parliamentarians and government officials into the highly migrant-populated area where an estimated 20 per cent of residents — 400,000 individuals — are illegal immigrants, according to the French parliament.
To tackle the high crime rates in the area, the plan also calls for the renovation of police stations in Aulnay-sous-Bois and Épinay-sur-Seine, for a total cost of 30 million euros. The renovations are expected to be completed by 2023. A further 20 million euros will be put into education efforts.
Over the last several years, many have expressed serious concerns regarding Seine-Saint-Denis, not least due to the high levels of Islamic radicalisation in the area.
Last year, former French secretary of state Philippe de Villiers claimed that his brother General Pierre de Villiers, who resigned as the Chief of the Defence Staff in 2017, had warned President Macron over the dangers posed by increasing lawlessness in the suburbs.
“If the suburbs give rise to further and even more violent uprisings, we will have no way to face them: we lack the means, we lack the men. This is the reality of the French political situation,” de Villiers said his brother had told the French president.