The mayor of Orléans denounced the arrival of hundreds of homeless Parisian migrants in his city “on the sly”.
The mayor of Orléans assures us: 500 homeless migrants from Paris have been sent to his city for almost a year, a decision that he does not like at all. “Orléans is not intended to host the crack hill of Paris,” declared Serge Grouard during a press conference, reported by C News. He also assured that he had not been informed by state services of these massive arrivals. The mayor then inquired for his part: he discovered, according to him, a system which dated back to May 2023 with arrivals of Parisian buses every three weeks “with between 35 and 50 people on board”.
The migrants would have first been installed in hotels without really knowing what would become of them afterwards, Orléans lacking available emergency accommodation. “All of this is shocking. To move people to cities where they cannot in fact be taken care of, and to do it on the sly without informing the mayor,” the elected official was indignant. Orléans would not be the only city concerned. According to Floriane Varieras, deputy mayor of Strasbourg who spoke to theAFP, there would be no less than “13 regional airlocks throughout France” including one near Strasbourg in the town of Geispolsheim. Likewise, the elected official claimed not to have been informed of this population movement, thus complicating the reception of migrants.
Empty Paris for the Olympics?
With such transfers, would elected officials in Paris seek to move these homeless migrants to the provinces before the Olympic Games? According to Serge Grouard, the objective would be to make “clear space” in the capital for the sporting event. Several associations have also denounced a “social cleansing” of the Ile-de-France region, which would aim to get the most precarious populations living on the streets moving in preparation for the Olympics. The government had asked the prefects in March 2023 to create new “temporary regional reception areas”, arguing for “shelter” but denying speeding up the process in the run-up to the Olympic Games.
For the mayor of Orléans, the State is only moving the problem: “We are not here to compensate for the impotence of the State. Instead of proposing solutions, we are getting rid of the problem. they are in an irregular situation, they must leave the territory.” The elected official then decided to contact Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin directly.