The tone was serious, the meeting unusual. On Wednesday, the mayor of Rennes Nathalie Appéré invited the press to the walls of a small building in the popular district of Blosne. It is in this emergency accommodation center called Extremadura that a hundred people live awaiting a decision from the prefecture whether or not to regularize their situation. Opened in the fall of 2020 by the socialist municipality, the building was to accommodate families “for a few days of shelter” while waiting to find a more stable solution. Two years after opening, most families are still there, without a solution. If the situation is far from being enviable, it has the merit of offering a roof and heated premises to these families from all over the world. Not everyone is so lucky. In Rennes, many families are homeless, confronting the State with its inability to house them. An inability that the mayor of Rennes decided to denounce in front of a handful of local journalists this Wednesday. Selected pieces.
Why did you decide to speak today?
Nathalie Appéré: Last night (Tuesday to Wednesday), 38 children slept in the streets of Rennes. This situation is totally unacceptable. When I was elected in 2014, I made a commitment that no child would sleep outside. It was a political commitment but also a personal one, a fight. We did everything to get there. The city finances 900 to 950 emergency accommodation places every day, even though this is a state responsibility. We have created a dedicated service, we spend our time looking for solutions, tinkering. We also wonder what the situation would be if we did not do this. But there, we can’t do it anymore. We are at the end of our funding capacities (an annual budget of four million euros is devoted to it, as in Nantes). In the land of human rights, this is not acceptable.
What do you expect from the state?
The state must respect the law, that’s all. When I hear that the city is discarding itself on the prefecture, I am angry. I’m a Republican, I believe in the law. And the right, it is clear. He says emergency shelter is the strict jurisdiction of the state. So, yes, there were de facto efforts on the part of the prefect. Yes, we saw sheltering. But we learn at the same time that the State plans to eliminate 14,000 emergency accommodation places.
The situation is no longer tenable because the system is blocked. These children did not ask for anything. Their parents are waiting for us to give them a status. They only want to work, to find accommodation. Every day I meet entrepreneurs who are struggling to recruit. Our country is depriving itself of these talents.
What do you think is the problem?
The problem is that we are in an administrative no man’s land. The system is blocked by a fault of our administration. Officials from Ofii (French Office for Immigration and Integration) and Ofpra (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons) have made this known. I questioned the Prime Minister on this subject. These families are stuck for years waiting for status. If they got it, they could give way to others who are in even more complicated situations. There, everything is locked. What I want to convey is a cry of alarm. These families, we can choose not to see them, but they are there. The state has managed to do this for families from Ukraine who are living in a terrible situation. Why not reproduce this?