Between sixty and one hundred homeless exiles helped by a pro-migrant association occupied the forecourt of the Paris City Hall on Thursday, October 28, to demand an accommodation solution, noted an AFP journalist.
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The surroundings of the Paris town hall located in the 4th arrondissement were taken over around 1:30 p.m. by activists from the
Utopia 56
association
and migrants, mainly families from sub-Saharan Africa. "
The objective is to obtain accommodation places for these people who have been
homeless
for several weeks,
" Kerill Theurillat, coordinator of
Utopia 56
in Paris
, told AFP
. “
Our solidarity accommodation network has been submerged for several weeks with more than a hundred people to take care of each evening. It's really an emergency
», Added the activist associations before being put aside from the rally by the police with other volunteers. This is a new punch action in the capital for
Utopia 56
.
In July, with the Réquisitions collective, which wants to make these exiles visible in the street and of which Utopia 56 is a part, 600 homeless people settled on the very chic Place des Vosges.
In September, 1,200 people, mainly migrants, had camped on the outskirts of the prefecture of Ile-de-France.
"
We demand that the prefecture grant accommodation places to these people
", told AFP Pierre Mathurin, also coordinator of the association in Paris, who underlines the "
situations of vulnerability
" experienced by the migrants present Thursday in Paris.
Read also500 homeless migrants set up tents in front of the Ile-de-France prefecture
Asked, neither the town hall nor the regional prefecture had reacted immediately. “
I have been sleeping outside for four years
,” explains Mariam Sangare, 33, from Ivory Coast, eight months pregnant and mother of a one-year-old girl. “
Often the day center is closed. I'm tired,
”she adds to AFP, when the red, blue and green tents installed on the forecourt were gradually removed by the police, loaded in an unmarked truck. “
I lost my house in 2020. I call 115 all the time but they have no room. We have no place to sleep
», Also explains to AFP Ornella Moulaka, Congolese of 26 years, sitting on the ground.
She usually spends the night in a park near Bercy.
Her 7-year-old daughter in her arms, this mother calls out to the police, gathered around the demonstrators: “
Freedom, equality, fraternity: is that it?
We won't move from here.
"