Today, on the morning of Tuesday, December 12, a migrant camp located under a bridge by the Ourcq canal and near the Parisian beltway was evacuated. The unsanitary camp in the northeast of Paris was cleared by the authorities, and “around 100” migrants were provided shelter after most of them refused to be sent to the provinces.
In the early morning, the tents and mattresses that composed the makeshift camp under a bridge along the Ourcq canal and near the beltway in the 19th arrondissement of the capital were removed during the operation. “Approximately 80 people refused to be relocated to other regions due to their ties in Île-de-France” and will receive “only a week of assistance” in the Parisian region, stated the collective handling the situation.
“About 100 people were given shelter this morning,” confirmed the prefecture of the Île-de-France region (Prif), which is responsible for these operations. Among them, sixteen finally agreed to be transferred to “the Strasbourg hub,” and 84 others were placed in a reception center in the Parisian region, according to Paul Alauzy, who leads the effort at Médecins du monde, an NGO that was involved in the site.
This marks the 35th operation of its kind conducted by the Île-de-France prefecture since the beginning of 2023, with over 6,300 people placed in shelters.
More than 3,200 people have been directed to temporary accommodation facilities outside of Île-de-France, known as “hubs,” established by the government in April to assist homeless migrants in the Parisian region.
That all should be noted are continued calls on behalf of associations for a more permanent and humane solution for the precarious living situation of the migrant populations in Paris and the wider Île-de-France region.
