For Pierre Tebaldini, it is a warning that has become “necessary”. A month after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and when more than 26,000 Ukrainians have already entered French territory, the spokesperson for the city of Lagny-sur-Marne (Seine-et-Marne) has wanted to warn, on Twitter, individuals who would like to welcome some of these refugees into their homes. “I may be shocking and I apologize in advance. To all those who want to welcome Ukrainian families, please think carefully beforehand. I do not blame anyone but if you are involved in welcoming, say you although it is a lasting act”, he warned in a post published on march 14 on the social network. A firm recommendation, which follows a series of calls received by the mayor’s chief of staff, just days after the arrival of several Ukrainian families among the inhabitants. “Some tell us that they can’t do it. That communication doesn’t work, that the language barrier is too strong. Others tell us that they hadn’t expected that it would be mouths to feed , that they do not have the means, or that they do not have enough space and that their sofa is not enough …”, says Pierre Tebaldini to L’Express.
To date, four hosts have reportedly decided to end their cohabitation with Ukrainian refugees. If they have for the moment been able to be relocated by the city, the spokesperson is worried about a phenomenon which could multiply. “I receive one or two calls a day from individuals mentioning difficulties in their reception or who wish to backtrack. It is problematic, because we do not necessarily have the space to accommodate these families afterwards. I fear that we quickly reach a saturation of our reception capacities”. This Monday, March 21, Pierre Tebaldini, for example, received an email from a worried resident, who had agreed to host a Ukrainian refugee. “But her parents are due to arrive from Ukraine in the next few days, and she has no room to receive them. We must therefore find other solutions,” he explains, pointing to a common denominator in these calls. “Each time, these are people who are not accompanied by state services or associations, and who have gone through unofficial reception channels. It goes under our radar, and it can cause some problems”, he underlines, recalling that the reception “should never be done lightly”. “It is a decision that must be considered and accompanied, to avoid this kind of situation”, insists the spokesperson.
“People must understand the difficulty of receiving a family at home”, abounds Martine Aubry, mayor (PS) of Lille, with the Express. From the start of the Russian invasion, the elected official decided to launch a “call to welcome residence” to its inhabitants for Ukrainian refugees. “It went up very quickly: 3,000 families offered us just over 5,000 places,” she testifies, delighted. But immediately, the services of the city made it clear to the volunteers that this reception could not be done just anyhow. “It must be clear immediately: it is at least for three months, and we must agree to feed them. We thank all the families, but there are conditions”, recalls the mayor, who indicates that about 10% of applicants then reconsider their decision. “It’s a very small minority, but it exists: either because they can’t meet their food needs, or because the planned duration is too long, or because the housing is unsuitable”, explains Martine Aubry. “We must let it be known immediately, because there is nothing worse for refugees than to be placed with a family and then to be dislodged afterwards”. For the moment, the mayor specifies that of the 70 volunteer families in the Lille metropolis and the 430 people placed, only one welcoming ended up throwing in the towel after ten days. “She was hosting a couple and their little girl, and it was finally complicated in terms of space, so we found another family by mutual agreement”.
An “essential” external support
To guarantee the proper functioning of the system, Martine Aubry insists above all on the importance of the support of volunteers and refugees by the city. “We are very careful, it’s tailor-made”, guarantees the mayor of Lille. Eight elected officials are responsible for communicating regularly with the families, supporting them and reporting on any problems. “It’s a big organization: we have 15 interpreters permanently available, a lot of administrative work to settle, a long-term integration process to put in place… And sometimes a few surprises!”, says the former Minister, who recently welcomed a Ukrainian family to his city who had brought in their luggage… caged domestic rats. “At the time, I went to see the welcoming family saying that there might be a problem. But in the end, it didn’t cause anyone any worries!”, She concludes, laughing.
For associations specializing in solidarity accommodation, this external support is indeed “essential”. “To organize a peaceful cohabitation, it is first necessary to ensure that all the people who wish to welcome are aware of what this means in concrete terms”, explains Vincent Berne, director of the “J’accueille” program of the Singa association. , specializing in the integration of refugees and migrants. Since the start of the war, his NGO has received more than 5,000 accommodation offers from all over France. “About 3,000” could actually meet the conditions of the association, which notably requires a private room for refugees.
“We also know that some people will demobilize: we have seen this before with offers of reception sometimes motivated by strong emotion, as after the publication of the photo of the inert body of little Aylan Kurdi [en 2015, le cliché de ce Syrien de trois ans, retrouvé mort noyé sur une plage de Turquie, avait fait le tour du monde, NDLR]“, explains Vincent Berne. “But it is not the majority. And if at the end there are only 1,000 families left, that’s already a victory,” he adds. Meetings between refugees and hosts are not always a success. “About one out of four contacts does not work. In this case, we change, we find another family,” he says. “We are not a placement program, but a human relations program. It’s a real work of social bond, it can’t be improvised”.
Jean-Brice Muller, spokesperson for the France Horizon association, confirms. “Welcoming, accommodating and supporting refugee families, often in a state of distress and uprooted, is not trivial,” he insists. While his organization has been mandated by several departments, particularly in Gironde, to put individuals and Ukrainian refugees in touch with each other, he recalls that each host is contacted beforehand by social workers, in order to discuss the constraints and adaptations generated by the welcoming a foreign family. “There are filters to put in place, and these citizen accommodations must be organized and prepared. Visibility is needed on the duration, on the quality of the accommodation, access to transport, the acceptability or not of animals … If it’s not clear from the start for both parties, it can cause long-term problems,” he warns.
“You need a built and serious framework”
“The problem is that the reception of Ukrainians was done in a pearly and very spontaneous way. We have no real visibility on the profile of the hosts, nor on the number of refugees actually settled with the locals. “, analyzes Olivier Peyroux, sociologist specializing in migration and co-founder of the association Trajectoires. For him, the risk that some refugees pass under the radar of the government and associations is thus very real. “It is currently impossible to carry out precise monitoring or prevention: for the moment, there is neither approval, nor training, nor real selection of welcoming families. There are many informal networks, and face to the fragility of the public received, this could cause a problem”, he believes. Geneviève Colas, coordinator of the collective “Together against human trafficking” for Secours Catholique and Caritas France, also expresses her concern. “We can imagine the most benevolent welcoming, but also the most exploitative. You need a built and serious framework, to avoid opening the door to the wrong people”, she advises, alarmed by the possible excesses of a poorly organized reception. “Providing rooms in exchange for payment, household help or childcare, for example, is absolutely not legal,” she recalls.
Especially since in a crisis situation, certain profiles are sometimes difficult to verify. “We rely on human intelligence,” says Arnaud Devigne, co-founder of the EU4UA platform, which aims to connect Ukrainian refugees with European citizens who want “to offer them a home during the conflict”. While more than 6,500 French host families were registered on the platform on Wednesday, and 2,300 of them had already received a request for accommodation, Arnaud Devigne admits that his teams cannot investigate each volunteer family. “The refugees exchange directly with their future hosts, they send each other photos, messages. They are then advised to approach local NGOs as quickly as possible to carry out procedures in the prefecture, but we cannot take care of the support for integration after this connection. It is not our role”, he argues. If some “rare” profiles have been deleted from the platform, for having published too precise and restrictive criteria on the refugees they wished to receive or after having reconsidered their decision to welcome, Arnaud Devigne also ensures that 99% of Exchanges are going “very well”.
“If there is the slightest doubt, I delete the ad”, testifies for his part Sébastien Champalaune, 42-year-old web developer. A few days after the start of the war, this Breton created the Solidarité Accueil Réfugiés Ukrainiens website, which connects refugees and French families. To date, more than 3800 users have registered there, offering 2343 different accommodations. “More than 600 requests have been sent”, says Sébastien, satisfied. But the developer admits it: nothing allows it to verify the profile of its users, nor under what conditions the refugees were housed. “There is simply a form to fill out, with the surname, first name, the number of people who can be accommodated”. The 40-year-old has even had to deal with some suspicious profiles: a man recently confused his platform with a dating site, posting photos of him. “He was clearly looking for a woman to get married or to join a PACS, I immediately reported his announcement!”, says Sébastien. To avoid this kind of disappointment, the developer created a new tab on its site last week, allowing associations that would like to support hosts in their approach to make themselves known. A solution “to be preferred”, according to Vincent Berne, of the Singa association. “For both refugees and families, hosting outside the framework can be very complicated and lonely. Don’t do it,” he advises.