Even the workers turn around.
"We have just learned that there has been an arrival
of Hindus
who do not want to be tested and with the variant ... We are awaiting the opinion of the chief", says a technician, in the parking lot of the area of waiting for Roissy, this Wednesday morning.
It is in a building under protection, between the freight zone and the runways, that foreigners lacking the documents required to continue their journey or circulate in France are held.
This Wednesday, the Zapi (waiting area for pending people) was full: 133 people for 150 places, including many Indians who refuse to be tested. As if a negative test could precipitate boarding on a return flight.
After the Red Cross and the Anafé (association of aid to foreigners) who asserted their right of withdrawal, these two workers assigned to fire safety finally withdrew.
Inside the airport, the Covid and its Indian variant, present in 17 countries, haunt people.
"Everyone must take their responsibilities, at the highest level of the State, what are we waiting for to put a barnum and test?"
pleads Me Rachid Hassaïne, appointed official to about eight people, including this Indian family, the first to go before the judge of freedoms and detention.
Because every day, in an annex of the court, a judge examines the regularity of the maintenance in the waiting zone of these people in transit.
Asylum in France instead of Mexico
"We do not want to go back to India, we want to continue our trip to Cancun", maintains the young father in Hindi through a translator. The couple evokes death threats, political pressure, children deprived of school. Mask on the nose, the 4 and 6 year old girls listen quietly, seated in front of their parents. They are so small that their feet do not touch the ground. Prevented from going to Mexico, the family finally applied for asylum in France.
The trajectory of this family has been similar to so many since March.
The border police (PAF) suspect the existence of a "structured immigration network from Africa but also Ukraine and Russia" via a double ticket office to "try to cover their tracks", as indicated. an internal note.
Between April 1 and April 20, 198 Indians were sent to a waiting zone and 49 applied for asylum in France, by default.
Rumor has it that the passage would cost 17,000 euros.
Transit visas, reinstated since Tuesday, aim to dry up these transits through Roissy.
Doctors challenge the Elysee
"I am not here to examine the asylum request," the judge calmly explains before welcoming the dean of the day, 61, a retired civil servant in the Congo. In a weak voice, she explains that she came to France to "see a doctor" and her sons who live in Paris. His return ticket for March 2022 seemed suspicious. “For four days, she has been in Zapi. She remained with her mask, and had a test, she does not have the Covid, ”explains one of her sons, worried about his mother's state of exhaustion.
La Zapi are rooms that do not close from the inside, with shared sanitary facilities.
"I can't stand staying here any longer, there are all these cases of Covid," protests a 20-year-old Guinean, a bogolan tailor and a large red veil.
She explains that she wanted to flee a "second excision" in her country, and thought she would find refuge with an uncle, with false papers.
She has been sleeping in Zapi for twelve days.
There have been cases of Covid: a Moroccan returning from Brazil, a woman from Burkina Faso, feeling uneasy at the hearing.
Seventeen cases were recorded by the medical service.
Have they been contaminated with Zapi?
"A cluster with a variant is possible, a health risk for the territory"
"A Zapi cluster of people with an unknown variant is possible", indicates the medical service, which deplores the "irresponsible" behavior of some. “When they cough, they refuse treatment and tests despite our insistence, 82 people refused our multiple proposals between April 16 and 26. The refusal of Indian people to perform PCR tests prevents them from being placed in medical isolation, ”deplore the caregivers.
The four doctors and three nurses who make up the medical service have just sent a second letter to the Elysee Palace.
"Some of these people have already left the area, and this represents a health risk on the territory", concludes the last letter.
Since Monday, vaccination has been offered to all professionals of the Zapi and the judicial annex.
The saliva tests offered by rescuers every two days since April 24 do not seem much more popular with people in detention.
"The administration compensates as much as possible what is not done by the Red Cross, insists Me Oriane Camus, lawyer of the prefecture.
She distributes gel, masks, meals, but we can't force them to do PCR tests.
The smugglers put it in their heads to refuse these tests ... "
A PCR test on leaving
Only the young Guinean sees her continued detention extended.
For the other eleven, the judge noted irregularities or considered sufficient proof of stay.
It is now up to these foreigners to take the necessary steps to organize their return or regularize their presence in France.
A worker from the Red Cross, who attended the hearing, advises to carry out a Covid screening at the exit.
"We are going to do it", assures us a Kurdish thirty-something, who came to welcome his brother and a cousin who fled Turkey and who also refused the Covid test.
He does not budge, a screening in Zapi "it was too risky, compared to the expulsion".
In the RER despite an isolation order
It is impossible to know what the Indian family is planning. She speaks neither English nor French and looks for a taxi to reach a hotel in Paris, near the Gare de l'Est. Coincidentally, it was in this station that the concern rose a notch, Wednesday afternoon. During a passenger check, a forty-something was found in possession of a solitary confinement order. He had tested positive for Covid when he got off a plane from India the same morning. "How can we let someone take the RER in this case?" asks an observer, outraged. Asked, the police headquarters did not enlighten us. "Isolation is offered in a hotel or at the place of your choice, but nothing prevents you from taking public transport," notes another source.
According to our information, a second transit zone should soon open specifically for Indian nationals.
