Installed since Thursday evening in tents on the forecourt of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, the 560 homeless migrants were evacuated from the square and relocated on Friday evening, announced their support and the municipality.
These people, mostly families from Africa, had invested Thursday at 8 p.m. in the forecourt of the town hall of Paris, on which they had deployed 250 tents.
A “problem of political will at the reception level”
Twenty-four hours later, “this action will have made it possible to accommodate 560 people”, including 320 with families, or even single women, said Kerill Theurillat, Parisian manager of Utopia56, the association to the initiative of this camp.
“The sheltering of these people is excellent news, but it is very sad to have to carry out this type of operation to obtain accommodation, even though we have been alerting for weeks to the situation of families on the street”, he added, underlining a “problem of political will at the reception level”.
Two gymnasiums mobilized
“All (the people who occupied the square) will have a roof over their heads this evening”, reacted for his part Ian Brossat, PCF deputy to the mayor of Paris in charge of welcoming refugees, in a tweet accompanied by photos on which we see migrants getting on buses, surrounded by a light police device. The mayor of Paris, which has mobilized two gymnasiums for these shelters, “assumes its responsibilities and goes beyond its skills,” he continued.
The prefecture of the Ile-de-France region, in charge of emergency accommodation for these populations, did not respond to AFP’s requests. “We wish to work with the State on lasting solutions, starting with the requisitions of vacant buildings,” insisted Ian Brossat, echoing the requests of the migrants who occupied the forecourt of the Town Hall. “No one can accept that buildings are left empty when people are sleeping outside. “