The small tents, of all different colors, are so tightly packed that they are touching. This Monday morning, there are close to a hundred of them. They seem to have clustered together to better combat the nighttime cold under the imposing overhang of the Saint-Merri-Renard school, in the heart of Paris. Before dawn, between the Centre Pompidou and the Hôtel de ville, a sad ballet begins here. Shadows, still sleepy, emerge from the mosaic of canvases. Mostly men, often from West Africa. But also several women, including a five-month pregnant Hungarian woman. And children, around ten of them. The youngest occupant of the camp is a 4-month-old baby.
Every morning, belongings need to be packed away, often in a large plastic bag hidden among the bushes in a nearby green space. The area needs to be tidy by 8:30 am, before the arrival of the primary school children. The ritual has been perfected since the end of the summer, even though the number of tents has significantly increased since All Saints’ Day. For a long time, the parents of the students did not notice the existence of the nightly encampment.
Then, one autumn morning, the municipal police, responsible for ensuring the tents are taken down, fell behind in their rounds. And the two worlds crossed. “We sadly note that about ten families have been sleeping in front of our school and in the surrounding area for a few weeks now,” wrote the local representatives of the FCPE in an email sent on November 17 to all the parents of the students.
Noticing that “unfortunately, no solution has been proposed” by the town hall or the prefecture, they organized, in collaboration with Utopia 56 and Paris d’exil, two migrant aid associations, a collection of warm clothing and food. “We are going to try to create a parents’ collective in Paris Centre and potentially pursue actions,” plans Florent Cheippe, a volunteer at Paris d’exil, whose child is at Saint-Merri.
“Since a year ago, more and more people are living on the streets”
While waiting to find a place to live, Khadi, a 25-year-old Ivorian woman, wakes up early every day. She traveled through Tunisia and Italy before arriving in France seven months ago, and she sleeps in a gray tent with her two daughters, aged 10 and 4. Like her little sister, Assetou has been attending a school in the 2nd arrondissement since the start of the school year, a kilometer away. “The girls only bathe on Saturdays and Sundays,” her mother laments. “In the morning, the showers open at 8 am, which is too late to be on time for class.”
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