On the forecourt of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, the colored tarpaulins of the tents have been deployed. Homeless migrants and their supporters set up about 250 tents on Thursday June 24 under the offices of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, to demand an accommodation solution. These people, mostly families from sub-Saharan Africa or minors, deployed the tents to settle there when the town hall bells rang 8 p.m. According to the association behind the action, Utopia56, the tents were still deployed this Friday morning.
“We are asking for them to be sheltered because for the past two or three weeks, we have not been able to manage, our solidarity accommodation network is completely saturated. We alerted the prefecture (of the Ile-de-France region), but we had no response. We hope that the town hall (PS) will give us its support ”, declared on the spot Kerill Theurillat, a local official of the association Utopia56, at the origin of the action.
2nd day at the Place de l’Hotel de Ville in Paris and still no news from @ Prefet75_IDF concerning the shelter of the 300 women, men and children on the spot. In silence, the state continues to flout its duties and commitments. pic.twitter.com/fiieIv3pcb
– Utopia 56 (@ Utopia_56) June 25, 2021
“This policy of refusing to welcome exiles is a choice. Everything is designed to discourage these people, at the expense of European values, their integration and human rights, ”added Maël de Marcelus, another manager of Utopia56.
Vulnerable children on the streets
On the forecourt, already occupied last September 1 by a similar action, Diabaté Bandiaba, a 29-year-old Ivorian living in a tent with her two-year-old daughter, explains wanting to leave the accommodation cycle for one night “before being put outside ”, which she has been living for six months and the rejection of her asylum application.
Further on, Agnini Kouamé, father of a two-year-old girl born in France, asks for nothing else. “We are looking for a longer solution. On the street, our child is still sick. We are here because we really have no choice, ”explains this other 41-year-old Ivorian.
Reports on the rise
In a letter dated Wednesday sent by the town hall of Paris to the regional prefecture and consulted by AFP, Anne Hidalgo’s deputy in charge of welcoming refugees, Ian Brossat, draws the attention of the Report “on the situation of families seeking asylum without an accommodation solution in Paris, whose reports are increasing”.
“In order not to allow this situation to continue, at the risk of seeing the reconstitution of large-scale camps such as they may have existed in recent years in the north of Paris,” he added, “we ask that a in charge of families can be carried out as quickly as possible ”.