Sports tourists come, so immigrants have to be driven out of Paris. In a nutshell, this is the device the French government is planning to implement with two major sporting events in mind: the Rugby World Cup, which will be held this fall, and the Olympics, which will start in the summer of 2024. they are usually homeless. They want to be removed from the French capital in order to vacate the rooms aimed at welcoming the public from these two great events.
new customers
Leaving the Ile-de-France district of Paris, the Elysée plans for these people to go to the countryside, given that the number of hotels willing to host them is already starting to dwindle. According to the news of Le Monde newspaper, many hotel operators no longer want to see these dangerous people in their rooms thanks to government funds. Their prospects are for “real” customers, i.e. those who will come to Paris to attend sporting events that will bring millions of people under the Eiffel Tower. This is what Housing Minister Olivier Klein observed during the National Assembly in early May. Emergency shelter lost almost five thousand rooms because of this. To address this shortcoming, the French government has since March asked governors to create “temporary regional reception areas” in all regions except Hauts-de-France and Corsica to “unblock reception centers” in the Ile-de. -France.
air locks
Persons invited to leave would have to be treated for three weeks in these “balance rooms” before being “redirected” to “the type of housing appropriate for their situation” in their new location. Behind this linguistic balancing act lies a much more painful truth: there are no poor people in the city, especially when it is inappropriate. The system primarily affects immigrants. Most live on the streets or in emergency housing. The housing ministry’s office told Agence France-Presse that these people were not specifically targeted by these decisions, as the “principle of unconditional welcome” was applied. But concretely, they are the first to suffer the consequences of these elections. Away from Paris, the prevailing climate is heavy in terms of the arrival of immigrants. Philippe Salmon, mayor of the city of Bruz, one of the city centers that the government has shown to host a reception centre, commented, “We are not in favor of installing such an airlock in our municipality under these circumstances, which we think is unwarranted.” homeless. The Breton municipality of about 18,000 has criticized the choice of land adjacent to a railway line and “contaminated with hydrocarbons and heavy metals”. The mayor held out his hands, convinced that the center’s future residents would not come “by choice.”
Mayors under pressure
This environmental displacement is nothing new. Led by President Emmanuel Macron, the country has already implemented a similar system since 2021, focusing specifically on asylum seekers. Although a parliamentary report claimed the “usefulness and effectiveness” of the system, in reality a quarter of those affected refused to leave the Île-de-France. Beyond the Alps, unlike in Italy, transfers of immigrants and asylum seekers are “subject to political exploitation leading to threats and violence”, as was the case when the mayor of Saint-Brévin-les had recently resigned. -Needles.
The proposal to displace the homeless outside the Ile-de-France was not rejected in principle by the Solidarity Actors Federation. But its chairman, Pascal Brice, highlighted the “lack of emergency reception places” in host areas, as well as “political pressure from the Home Office to work with real support”. According to the association representative, the government cannot limit itself to “putting people on the bus”. Brice underlined that in this case, “it is distribution, not acceptance”. Even more critically, Eric Constantin, president of the Abbé Pierre Foundation, sought suitable housing for people in distress in France. He believes that a time scale of just three weeks is too narrow for finding housing units for people living in precariousness. “Surprised” by the fit between the arrival of the Olympic Games and a program aimed at sending immigrants to the provinces, Constantin wondered if the government “wanted to make sure there were no more camps left before millions of people came to France.” “.
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
