NGOs accuse Paris of 'social cleansing' ahead of Olympics

It’s 6:00 AM on the Charles de Gaulle Bridge in the east of Paris. Just below, more than 150 people live in this makeshift camp made-up of tents, mattresses and blankets. Dozens of police officers supervise this operation to try and relocate these unhoused people. They show no resistance as police Wake them up and give them instructions. Don’t forget your things, your papers and everything else. Come, we’ll put them on the side. OK, good luck. We simply wake them up, giving them the option to either take the bus or not. There are two solutions. Either they go to the eastern region West has Boris, or to the central region of the Luahe, to the town of Orleon and nearby. For those who don’t take the bus, it’s their choice. We’re not here to force anyone. NGOs who were told about the operation the evening before try to reassure and explain the options offered by the authorities. They will only keep you for two weeks. Yeah, three weeks. And then And then it’s going to depends. Do you have the office card or no office card. Actually I’m refugee status. I have refugee status. I have recommend try your chance. OK, you need to try and after three weeks you will see if they propose you something. OK. Actually if they didn’t offer a home then they will trim me out. Nah, I should start for the same place again. Yeah, it’s possible. It’s possible. These are people who have fled Sudan, Eritrea, Afghanistan, who have fled wars, crises, who arrive in Paris and who are welcomed by the streets. With the Olympic Games coming, a new system has been put in place called SAS that will take all these people to other regions outside of Paris. And we know that only those who have just arrived in the country will be able to be housed on a more or less long term basis. For the others, they’ll be assessed for three weeks before being put back out on the street In other regions, one after the other, they make their choice. A small group goes up the stairs, escorted by police, headed to the bus for Strasbourg. Many others decide to stay. Because we work. We have contracts. We choose to stay in Paris. After 9:00 AM, we go to work for this evening. We will see emergency housing is full. He and his friends already know that they will sleep outside tonight in the cold, and to ensure that unsheltered people don’t return to this site, barriers and large stones are quickly put in place. Just in front we have another empty space which is fenced in and we see that it’s a space which was not at all intended to be closed off. We can see a staircase, so it was originally designed to go down along the. These barriers are nothing new to Paris, but with the games coming up, this sociologist claims they are now being installed systematically. In the last months of 2023 there were weekly evacuation operations, also called sheltering by authorities. So that’s a lot of people being displaced and removed from public spaces. It’s really speed up because of the Olympics. There’s obviously an image that Paris wants to put forward without the most precarious people out in plain sight. These fences and stones can be seen all along the caves of the Seine and are gradually becoming a feature of the French capital after the Olympics. I can’t see why we’ll go back on these measures, which are deterring people living on the streets. In addition to these resheltering operations, authorities have also had to look into how public funds will be used for the unhoused and migrant populations. There’s a shortage of nearly 20,000 emergency shelters in France. Homelessness is traditionally addressed at the state level, but the Paris City Hall is worried that not enough is being done. It’s true that the Olympic pressure is real. If the government does not grasp the magnitude of a social emergency, what will happen? But police will take matters into their own hands. They are not in charge of emergency housing but are in charge of security and will do what we saw in other cities which hosted the Olympics and Paralympics push people out. The government refutes accusations of social cleansing ahead of the Olympics, rather describing their actions as a redistribution of emergency housing across the country. But they have yet to convince the 80 Ng OS and associations that have joined forces ahead of the Olympics. So, so solidarity. What will happen to all these people when the Olympic flame comes here and all the cameras are only interested in sport and the greatness of France? We want the public to mobilize. The government’s efforts today are not at all sufficient. The Olympics are a varnish that covers a lot of things, but it doesn’t solve the problems for the NGOs. The message the city is sending is clear. People living on the streets are to disappear from public spaces during the Games and if possible, forever. 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