She had arrived at the refugee reception center with the same shopping bags hanging from her stroller in mid-April after fleeing Ukraine. Two months later, Natalia Loukianenko is back in the Parisian office. But this time, on the way back. At a time when the exodus continues, with more than six million Ukrainians who have already left the country, Natalia Loukianenko is convinced of making the right choice, by turning back. This is also the case of Olha Tkachenko, 67, who arrived from Madrid with her two granddaughters for the night, in Paris: “The girls wanted to go back and I reached a certain age, I prefer to die at home . »
The trend is difficult to quantify, because France does not count exits from the territory. “We know that some are leaving, but we don’t know how many”, soberly summarizes Didier Leschi, head of the French Office for Immigration and Integration.
In the Parisian reception center alone, more than a thousand people have already reported heading to Ukraine, estimates Marianne Lorenzo-Lavandier, site coordinator for the Coallia association.