Anger over plan to influence homeless folks to go away Paris earlier than Olympics | Paris

Native politicians and charities in France have expressed considerations a few French authorities plan to encourage hundreds of homeless folks and asylum seekers to go away the Paris space earlier than subsequent yr’s Olympic Video games and transfer to different areas of the nation to liberate lodging within the capital.

The information company Agence France-Presse reported that since mid-March, the federal government has requested native prefects to create short-term reception centres in each French area besides the north and Corsica, which might liberate house in inns usually used as emergency lodging centres in and round Paris.

The housing minister, Olivier Klein, instructed parliament this month that quite a few inns didn’t need to function emergency lodging for homeless folks or asylum seekers this autumn as a result of they anticipated an inflow of holiday makers through the rugby World Cup, and the identical was true for subsequent summer season’s Olympics. Maud Gatel, a centrist MP from the MoDem social gathering, stated 5,000 beds in emergency lodging can be misplaced.

Underneath the plan, homeless individuals who voluntarily left Paris or surrounding areas can be housed for 3 weeks within the short-term regional reception centres, paid for by the state, earlier than being guided in the direction of lodging in the identical area that met their wants.

Bruz, a city of 18,000 folks close to Rennes in Brittany, has been designated to deal with one of many reception centres. It’s scheduled to obtain 50 folks each three weeks from September. Nonetheless, its mayor, Philippe Salmon, stated he was not in favour of the centre being arrange there, in what he known as “unfit” circumstances.

Salmon criticised the state of the land the place the centre was to be positioned, which had been described as a wasteland close to prepare tracks. “The bottom is polluted by heavy metals and petrol. For us, these aren’t dignified circumstances during which to deal with folks,” he stated. Salmon needed to understand how the state would deal with any potential pressure.

The mayor instructed the France Inter radio station that native politicians had not been consulted. After Yannick Morez, the mayor of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, a seaside city in western France, resigned this month after demise threats and an arson assault on his residence over an asylum seeker centre.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, stated: “There may be completely no query of chasing anybody from Paris. None in any respect. No one can be pressured to go away, no person can be obliged to go the opposite finish of France.

“I’m offended about this being pushed on to the town [authority] as a result of it’s not our position or accountability and we already play greater than our half to find pressing lodging for weak folks. Each week we’re placing households into properties.”

She stated it was a longstanding downside “completely unrelated to the Olympic Video games” and he or she had been asking the federal government to give you a plan for years.

“Paris will proceed to play its half, however it’s for the state to resolve this. For years I’ve requested the federal government to give you a plan and so they haven’t.”

Hidalgo stated Rémi Ferraud, a senator and former mayor of the tenth arrondissement in northern Paris the place many immigrants collect across the Gare du Nord, deliberate to submit a draft regulation on the finish of June calling for a nationwide plan to “share” the distribution of individuals from Paris round France.

Metropolis corridor says there are 150,000 folks in short-term lodging within the Paris area, Île-de-France, and an estimated 3,000 folks, largely single males and long-term homeless, slept tough within the capital.

Establishing reception centres and discovering homeless folks and immigrants lodging outdoors Paris was an answer nevertheless it wanted to be correctly organised and wanted state help for native authorities and the homeless individuals who had been willingly relocated of their areas.

Hidalgo stated the state’s failure to handle the issue had created a “chaotic state of affairs” that was fuelling far-right rhetoric.

Emmanuel Grégoire, Paris’s deputy mayor answerable for city planning, stated: “The housing of homeless folks and migrants is all the way down to the state. We do greater than our half and have opened locations providing pressing lodging for people who find themselves notably weak and are our accountability together with households with younger youngsters, however we can’t do that alone and it’s not our job.”

He added: “It’s not true to counsel there would be the mass expulsion of individuals from Paris [before the Olympic Games].”