Saint-Ouen: Roma families from the Docks slum were evicted

Four days before the winter break, the Roma families settled in a camp on rue Pierre, in Saint-Ouen, were evacuated by the police on Thursday morning.

The city had issued an evacuation order in early September, highlighting the danger associated with the fire that had occurred on August 18, in an abandoned warehouse adjoining the camp.

"The site had become unsanitary and presented dangers to the safety of residents," she recalls on Thursday.

A little less than forty people were still there.

Like Lucrecia, mother of four.

“We wanted a plot to stay with everyone,” she regrets.

They said:

We don't know what we're going to do.

We are in the street.

"

According to the city, no family has accepted the social support offered by the State and therefore, temporary relocation.

Before the summer, around 80 people had been counted.

"We had taken the decision to offer accommodation to families whose children were in school, to avoid any interruption in schooling," explains Mohad Djouab, director general in charge of health and solidarity in the city.

According to the town hall, no more family was in this situation this Thursday morning.

"Some had left for Romania this summer and did not come back knowing of the fire, others changed site after the disaster", indicates the director.

According to the associative activists present on the spot, several children were nevertheless still present on the site.

The occupants requested temporary land

In recent days, a complete social diagnosis could not be established in the face of the refusal of the occupants. "Families have testified that people had come forward but without presenting a card", justifies one of their supporters. So they didn't let them in. “A social diagnosis is not done three days before expulsion. It has been two years since this land was identified by the public authorities ”, criticizes Daniel Maunoury, local activist of the DAL (Right to Housing).

The association refused any evacuation without the provision of another place. "We asked for the establishment of an urban and social project management

to work on the situations of each family for a lasting solution, continues the activist. . But in the meantime, we had to provide them with another temporary land. "

The deputy (LFI) Éric Coquerel was also opposed to the procedure without “lasting solution to propose to the people.

"" Occupation in makeshift shelters, made by residents themselves, is not a solution.

But putting people on the street is even less so, he denounces.

We can judge the illegality of an occupation, but as long as we do not have a better solution ... There is a lot of work in progress or to come in Saint-Ouen and we know that land exists.

"