A new squat was evacuated in Montpellier (Hérault), at Mas de Brousse, this Tuesday morning, indicate the services of the Hérault prefecture. The operation took place “as part of the execution of a court decision”. On September 15, the court granted the occupants three months to vacate the illegally occupied premises.
“Faced with the finding of the absence of voluntary departure of the occupants”, the prefecture asked for the assistance of the police force. Ten adults from Afghanistan, Gambia and Senegal were expelled, “out of the thirty foreigners who usually occupied the site”. Among them, there are six people in a regular situation, asylum seekers, “supported by the French Office for Immigration and Integration”. Four others, in an irregular situation, were placed in administrative detention.
“The choice that is made is to put people back on the street”
In a press release, the prefect of Hérault, Hugues Moutouh, “reaffirms his desire to put an end to the squats of illegal immigrants and the culture of impunity that accompanies it”. For several months, many squats have been evacuated.
Joined by 20 minutes, Damien Nantes, the regional coordinator of Doctors of the World, deplores that “the choice that has been made is to put people back on the street”. “If we can completely discuss the conditions of the illegal occupation of a space, what we see in our care center is how much the fact of people being outside makes them sick “, he confides. “The prefecture is very firm on certain principles of law, in this case the eviction of squats. We would like it to be equally so on the provision of emergency accommodation for anyone in distress. There are families with children, sometimes sick, who are on the street today. »