It’s 6:30 a.m., a late summer morning in Paris. Amid the noise emanating from the Stalingrad metro station, northeast of the French capital, hundreds of migrants, most of the men, slept huddled under a viaduct. Some lay on pieces of cardboard and old mattresses behind urine-soaked fences, others lay awake at the edge of the road.
There were rumors that a government bus was about to pick them up. Some waited impatiently, hoping that they would eventually be accommodated, most were confused and scared, fearing they would be forced to leave Paris. For months, the French government has been trying to speed up the transfer of homeless Parisians to other parts of the country, as part of a plan to relieve some of the pressure on emergency housing services. capital level. According to the government, each week, between 50 and 150 people are taken to one of 10 locations across France.
Despite the government denying any connection to the Olympics, which Paris will host in the summer of 2024, some NGOs and elected officials believe the Games are part of the reason. due to which this relocation plan was recently activated.
“We heard they were coming to take us today, but I don’t know where to go,” Obsa, a 31-year-old Ethiopian political refugee, told CNN. He wishes to be identified under a pseudonym for fear of reprisals. Obsa made the dangerous journey to France in 2017, from Ethiopia to Sudan and Libya, then across the Mediterranean to Italy.
He now has a full-time job in Paris, but even after many years of living in the city, he still cannot find permanent housing, largely due to the extremely high cost of rent in the capital. capital and the supply of more affordable social housing is very limited. . . Obsa was considering emergency accommodation in a hotel, but claims she kicked him out after his wife went with him. “They simply refused. They said:
we don’t have room for your wife,” he recalled.
Obsa is not the only one to have this experience. According to Paul Alauzy of Médecins Du Monde, an NGO that works with homeless migrants, as next year’s Olympics approach, Paris hotels have begun canceling emergency housing contracts with government to make room for the expected influx of tourists.
According to the Fédération des Acteurs Solidaires, which brings together local associations and charities, in 2022 around 50,000 homeless people were housed each night in hotels in Ile-de-France, where of Paris. This year, at least 5,000 previously vacant hotel spaces were cancelled, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported, which may partly explain why refugees like Obsa and his wife were pushed out into the street.
The Paris prefecture told CNN that the actual loss of emergency lodging was closer to 2,000 as the city sought alternatives to compensate for canceled hotel rooms. However, wasting hotel rooms is not the main problem facing homeless people in France. About half of the country’s homeless population is concentrated in Ile-de-France, where they have access to more charities, employment opportunities and more personal connections.
According to figures from the Ministry of Housing, of the more than 200,000 homeless people housed each night across the country, 100,000 are in Ile-de-France. Simply put, there is not enough emergency accommodation in Paris to accommodate everyone.
As Obsa spoke to CNN, dozens of French police approached and surrounded the area. Several large white buses parked and blocked the road. One of the buses carries the sign “Bordeaux”, another “Marseille”, the cities are located hundreds of kilometers from the capital.
Staff and volunteers from local humanitarian organizations and Paris police spoke to migrants who appeared distressed by what was happening.
Authorities informed the migrants over loudspeakers that they could board one of the buses to go to Marseille or Bordeaux, where they would be housed. Those wishing to stay in the capital are encouraged to demonstrate that they have a long-term employment contract. But even then, they will not be guaranteed a roof over their heads. Obsa, who works as an IT administrator, said: “I can’t leave, I have a one-year labor contract. “At least I have to stay in Ile-de-France.”
In total, 1,800 homeless people, the majority of whom are migrants, have been displaced outside Paris since April, according to figures compiled by the Inter-Ministerial Delegation on Accommodation and Access to Housing (Dihal), the government in charge of national policy revealed to CNN. access to housing.
According to Dihal, about 10 regional temporary shelters, known as SAS, have been set up across the country to welcome new arrivals outside Paris. Each SAS can accommodate up to 50 people. “All of this comes at a critical time, where there is also a preparing for the Olympics”. immigrant’. with the reality of what is happening on the streets of Paris, which means continuing to leave the thousands of people who have arrived on our territory without any support.
In 2022, France received 155,773 asylum requests, according to the government. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said in several television interviews that France would openly welcome political refugees, but its doors would remain closed to any migrants arriving in the country. are illegal and do not face repression in their homeland. According to government figures, in 2022 there will be nearly 20,000
Utopia 56’s Manzi thinks the resettlement effort could be a good idea in principle, but says the problem is that shelters in the area will only house people for three weeks, depending on which city responsible for hosting them and what happens after that is yet to be determined. . uncertain.
In SAS, some people get help finding housing and jobs for which they qualify, depending on their legal status, but this doesn’t work for everyone. “On average, 25 to 30 percent (of people) return to the streets,” Manzi said. “They find themselves after these three weeks without any solution, and therefore on the sidewalk again.”
In Bordeaux, one of the cities chosen to host SAS, this number is up to 40%. “They are disappearing,” Harmonie Lecerf-Meunier, deputy mayor of Bordeaux, told CNN. “We think they are returning to Paris.”
According to Dihal, in recent weeks the number of people leaving the SAS where they were posted has been around 17%.
Another problem is the lack of emergency accommodation in the areas where migrants are being transferred. “So people will find themselves on the streets again, but not in Paris. We take them out of Paris and put them on the streets in other places… we just solve the problem, we don’t solve it,” Brice said.
In a press release from May 2023, the government said that the Minister of Housing had “asked counties to work on establishing these centers in conjunction with local elected officials and associations.” . But the city halls of Lyon and Bordeaux, the two cities hosting the SAS, told CNN they were never consulted by the government. “We discovered it the day before,” said Lecerf-Meunier in Bordeaux.
Similarly, Lyon deputy mayor Sandrine Runel told CNN that the government rushed to calm the situation in Paris and Ile-de-France without ensuring the availability of appropriate resources elsewhere. “The Olympics are an excuse to direct people to regions without thinking and without even checking the available reception capacity of the regions,” she declared.
“The issue of welcoming foreigners is a difficult one politically and socially,” Brice said, referring to migrants. “And so the government chose not to talk about it, which I think was a mistake.”
Brice believes that sharing reception responsibilities between regions, if done well, could allow France to provide more thoughtful, humane and ultimately effective assistance to the thousands of migrants arriving. this country every year. However, for the system to work, it must be well-funded and well-managed, Brice said. Most importantly, as activists and host cities argue, everyone involved – from resettled migrants to the cities asked to receive them – must be fully informed. believe and actively participate in planning.
“If the government fails to take responsibility and provide itself with the appropriate means, it risks defeating the only useful solution to welcoming foreigners in this country,” Brice concluded.
Back at the homeless camp under the Stalingrad metro station, Abdullatif, 29, from Afghanistan, seemed tense. “I heard we have to leave Paris but I don’t want to. Finally I started training as an electrician and I had to stay here,” said Abdullatif, who only wanted to give his first name. He decided to stay in Paris.
But the fate of those who decide to stay in the capital is also uncertain. “Either you accept what they offer you, or you go back to the streets,” explains Alauzy, of Médecins Du Monde, who has now witnessed some resettlement activities.
And, if departures to the regions are voluntary, many