– The people who need the public space to live and live – you don’t want them because they pollute the city before the Olympics. They want to make them invisible and move them far away from cameras and television broadcasts, says Milou Borsotti, project manager at the organization Läkare i Världen.
Social cleansing?
As France prepares to host its biggest event ever, the number of homeless people in Paris has increased by 17 percent since last year. In October, the campaign “The other side of the medal” was therefore launched, where some 80 organizations warn of the risk of homeless people suffering during the festivities. Now several claim that there is a social cleansing going on before the Olympics.
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– We see all the time that tent camps are moved from the center towards the outer edges of Paris. And since a year ago, the phenomenon has increased sharply, says Borsotti.
Buses to other cities
According to the latest count, around 3000 people live on the streets of Paris. Meanwhile, the city has only announced 200 places in emergency accommodation during the Olympics. Now mayors around France are reacting to an increased influx of homeless people from Paris.
More than 500 people have been bussed to Orléans in the past year. The city’s mayor claims that he received neither advance warning nor information about where the people would live.
– I cannot confirm that it is an emptying of Paris due to the Olympics – but when you put one and one together – if it is not for that reason, then why? says Serge Grouard.
Recognizable phenomenon
At the 2008 Olympics in China, an unknown number of homeless people were driven from the streets, and human rights groups claim that the same happened when Rio de Janeiro hosted the Games in 2016. The Paris police prefecture says the movement of homeless people is part of the government’s redistribution policy, and has no connection to the Olympics .
– The police evict tent camps that are too close to the Olympic city and those located along the Seine where the Olympics will be inaugurated. So what we are doing is the same as Brazil, China, Vancouver and London have done, says Milou Borsotti.
SVT has applied to the Paris Police Prefecture and the Ministry of the Interior.