Paris seeks to take care of its image in the face of the Olympic and Paralympic Games of the summer of 2024. The city of luxury and glamour, of culture, fashion and joie de vivre, does not want to spoil this universal myth by the abundant presence homeless on the streets and improvised camps for foreigners in irregular situations.
The "policy of emptying", according to the unhappy expression of the same Minister of Housing, Olivier Klein, before the National Assembly, is being controversial because there is opposition to the rural and peripheral areas designated to temporarily house the homeless and process, if appropriate, in the case of foreigners, their regulation or their expulsion from the national territory. Voluntary repatriation will be compensated with 1,200 euros.
The Government's order to the prefects was finalized in mid-March. The aim was to have reception structures for the homeless who move from Paris and the region that surrounds it, the Île de France. It is estimated that around 100,000 homeless people accumulate in this area, half of France as a whole. They don't always live on the streets. A part is located in hostels or emergency residences - often hotels - paid for by the State. When the Olympic Games approach, with the massive influx of visitors and the hotels overflowing, the homeless would be an additional problem. It will not only be necessary to accommodate tourists but also thousands of police and military personnel who will ensure the safety of the sporting event.
The decision to send the homeless out of the capital has upset many people and reinforces the resentment towards official Paris that always gives priority to what is its own. This discontent of the periphery, especially the rural areas, with respect to the center was one of the deep causes of the long revolt of the yellow vests in 2018 and 2019.
Excluded from the distribution of the Parisian homeless are the Hautes-de-France region – already saturated by migrants trying to cross the English Channel to settle in the United Kingdom – and Corsica. The peculiarity of the island – and the irritation even towards the mainland French who have a second residence there – means that the arrival of the homeless could lead to public order problems.
The planned accommodation for the homeless has put mayors of small communities in Brittany, such as Bruz, with 18,000 inhabitants, on a war footing. They complain of being victims of unilateral and vertical decisions, fait accompli. In Saint-Jean-le-Vieux, in the department of Ain, near Switzerland, popular pressure has succeeded in thwarting the purpose of installing a reception center in a 12th century castle. There have also been signature campaigns in La Trinité, near Nice, and in Saint-Lys, in Haute-Garonne.
A few days ago, the mayor of the coastal town of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins (department of Loire-Atlantique), Yannick Morez, left his position in the face of harassment from elements of the extreme right who came to fire in his house because he wanted to set up a migrant asylum center near the town. Morez's case was a national political scandal.
It is clear that controversies such as the distribution of undocumented foreigners give strength to parties such as the National Reunification (RN), of Marine Le Pen, which mainly feeds on the vote of the rural and impoverished middle and lower middle classes.
The Government does not openly explain that the decision to "empty" Paris of homeless people and irregular foreigners has anything to do directly with the Olympic Games or the Rugby World Cup, which will be played in September and October this year, also in the capital They try to argue that the Parisian region suffers from an unsustainable management problem, and that mass relocation, for humanitarian reasons, was inevitable. But it is a public secret that the calendar is conditioned by sports appointments.
The French Government endured the international shame of the chaos that occurred in the final of the Champions League last year. Apart from the mess with the tickets, there were disproportionate police charges and many fans were assaulted at the exit of the match between Liverpool and Real. The Rugby World Cup and the athletics competitions of the Games were contested at the same Stade de France, located in the Seine-Saint-Denis, a poor and problematic department, bordering Paris to the north.
The most degraded neighborhoods of the municipality of Paris are also located in the north, next to the périphérique, the highway that circles the city. They are areas of districts 18 and 19. The Ministry of the Interior and the prefecture of police have been periodically organizing cleaning operations for years. They dismantle makeshift camps and remove the traffickers and users of crack, a devastating drug endemic to Paris. These actions have short-lived effects because the situation is usually reproduced after a few weeks or months in other places.
It remains to be seen if the Olympic pax will be a reality and if the image wash will work. There is much work to be done. The Games will be a headache from the start, with an unprecedented parade of delegations, on board barges, along six kilometers along the Seine, and with 600,000 people watching. Unpacking for a time from the homeless is a minor, cosmetic intervention in the face of the colossal global challenge of the hosts.
