The largest squat in France – which sheltered up to 450 migrants, most of them in a regular situation according to the associations – was evacuated on the morning of Wednesday April 17 in the southern suburbs of Paris, in Vitry-sur-Seine, in the department of Val-de-Marne.
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Coaches leave the place in small quantities, one of them leaves in the direction of Bordeaux. The operation, awaited for several days, took place peacefully. Some of the homeless people who had found shelter in this abandoned business had left the place the previous days.
The approximately 300 remaining occupants – men, women and children – left the scene shortly after 8 a.m. local time. Some 250 agents were mobilized for this operation, according to the Val-de-Marne prefecture.
Shelter is provided for displaced people in Île-de-France and in the region, for example in Bordeaux. These accommodations in regional airlocks will last three weeks, while their situation is examined. Some had been living in these premises for several months, unable to find a roof over their heads in the private sector, or waiting for social housing. According to the United Migrants association, which regularly provides them with assistance, 80% of them are in a legal situation in France.
This is the case of Mohammed Sayed, Eritrean, who lived in this squat for three years. He has refugee status, works in electrical maintenance in Eiffage on a permanent contract, but cannot find accommodation. “ It’s not that I’m happy to be here, but where am I going to go? », asks the forty-year-old to Agence France-Presse (AFP), his large suitcase on wheels next to him.
A little girl pushes a small bicycle. His mother and aunt are dragging suitcases. They had lived here for 3 years. “ They told me to go to Bordeaux, but I work here. », Declares the mother to RFI. “ I am in training. I would have to quit school to go to a place I don’t even know, asks the aunt. JI’m depressed. I don’t know what I’m going to do, where I’m going to go “. Next to her, her six-year-old daughter does not realize.
For others, like this Ivorian and his daughter, it will be the hotel for a few nights perhaps: “ Thank God we were accommodated there », puts the father into perspective. “ I was a little scared, I don’t want to stay on the street and I miss this squat. We played well in this squat », says the young girl. No deadline was specified to his father. But he leaves reassured. He will not sleep outside with his daughter.
I was a little afraid that we would sleep outside.
Testimony of a young girl during the expulsion of the squat in Vitry-sur-Seine
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Several squats evacuated
For several months, the Revers de la Medal collective, which brings together associations helping precarious people living on the street, has been warning about the fate of the homeless whose makeshift camps are being dismantled at a more sustained pace. approach of the Olympic Games between July 26 and August 11, according to this collective.
According to Paul Alauzy, who works for Médecins du monde, this new evacuation is linked to the Olympic Games. “ We have been witnessing evictions for a year and the evacuated squats still remain empty. »
One hundred days before the Olympics, “ we expel [des squats, NDLR] Chadians, Sudanese, Eritreans, Ivorians, Guineans who have papers: people on permanent contracts, but to whom we do not want to rent apartments. The only solution remains the squat », since these people work in Île-de-France, he adds.
Formerly the headquarters of a bus company, the building in Vitry-sur-Seine was gradually taken over by people evicted from other squats in Île-de-France.
A year ago, the authorities evacuated the former disused headquarters of Unibéton on L’Île-Saint-Denis, in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, near the future village of Paris Olympic athletes where 500 migrants lived.
In July 2023, 150 other people who had found refuge in an abandoned retirement home in Thiais, in Val-de-Marne, were also evicted.
Ali, a cleaning man at Disneyland, had also said, during his expulsion from a previous squat, in Seine-Saint-Denis, that he had been sent by the authorities by bus near Toulouse by mistake. This Sudanese refugee finally returned a few days later to the Paris region, to settle down at the squat in Vitry-sur-Seine, for lack of anything better, in order to be able to continue his work.