After a year of observation, 102 associations united within the collective “The other side of the medal” report in a report a “social cleansing” in the French cities which will host the Olympic events. More than 12,500 people in precarious situations were evicted from street camps, squats or shanty towns, without a lasting accommodation solution, and a quarter were sent outside the Paris region.
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This geographical distance also concerns sex workers or drug users. And the report published this Monday, June 3, is damning: 40% more evictions, 3,000 accommodation places eliminated in Île-de-France, increased police pressure, and all this since 2023.
It is this acceleration of the distancing of precarious populations which worries the associations of the collective “The other side of the medal”. Paul Rey-Fauvinet, volunteer for the Aides association which works with crack users in Paris, notes this: “ We, those in the field, have been working with these audiences for decades and we have never seen such repression, so we are sure, this is the impact of the Olympic Games. “.
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The Aides association notes a very strong increase in police presence in places where crack users live and consume. Orders have been issued against crack since 2023 and concern increasingly large areas.
“ For example, the RATP in certain metro stations removed seats on which these people could sitexplains Paul Rey-Fauvinet. We see people arriving who are on the street and who are always standing, wandering. This is also repression: it is hunting, moving, to more remote places, less within the reach of prevention actors and putting them in greater danger from attacks, fights, etc. »
Clean up the Bois de Vincennes and evict the inhabitants of the slums
Aurélia Huot, lawyer from the Paris Solidarity Bar, intervenes with sex workers in the Bois de Vincennes, where the connection between the Olympic Games and social cleansing is even more assumed: “ When the police officers were checking the girls, we asked them why there had been a change in practice and the marauding police officers told us “we tell you so, but we won’t write it down, but it’s clearly in the framework of the organization of the Olympic Games, we must clean up the Bois de Vincennes”. »
The police raids are now accompanied by agents from the prefecture who carry out administrative checks which are sometimes carried out in a very violent manner.
Aurélia Huot, lawyer from the Paris Solidarité bar
Lila Cherief from Secours catholique looked into the situation of expulsions, which do not all take place in the immediate vicinity of an Olympic site. However, some municipalities are taking advantage of the Paris 2024 opportunity: “ This was particularly the case in Noisy-le-Sec where we had a municipal decree which links the presence of the railway near a shanty town to eviction, because there would be a risk that the trains would no longer be there. hour during the Olympic Games. So, we see that this is a pretext to be able to expel. »
The collective’s seventy-page report was sent this Monday to the United Nations in an attempt to move the lines.
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