When he arrived from Algeria four months ago, with his French identity card, his birth certificate, his wife Fatiha and his 18-year-old son, Slimane imagined that this "return" to his country of origin would be a formality.
Four months later, this 72-year-old man survives with his relatives in an insanitary retreat, which adjoins the parking lot of a former 3-star hotel from the 15th century, transformed into a social residence.
In search of his biological parents
Helped by a friend, this former market gardener from Algiers was able to find help thanks to the Red Cross of Sartrouville (Yvelines), where he is now domiciled and followed by the social action center of the city, but remains without resources or medical coverage. "I am old, my wife is sick, my son cannot go to school, and we live in a cellar without water or electricity, although we were promised accommodation within 10 days!" », Assures Slimane. "The associations allow us to have a little food but his efforts are not progressing while he is French, he has the impression that he is being taken by boat", adds the friend of the septuagenarian.
With winter, the announced return of the cold, the freezing humidity of this concrete room overlooking a parking lot, Slimane nevertheless clings to the project that decided him to leave Algiers: to find his biological parents.
"I was adopted by a couple from Algiers, my parents are French, I am here to start research with my birth certificate," he explains.
The saturation of emergency accommodation in France, and in particular in Paris, got the better of his project.
The Red Cross powerless for accommodation
At the Sartrouville Red Cross, the old man's situation is certainly dramatic, but unfortunately comparable to that of dozens of homeless people and people in great precariousness helped by the association.
"We can provide domicile for people, help them with administrative procedures, meet certain needs during our patrols, but we have no power of action in terms of accommodation," recalls the president of the local Red Cross unit. de Sartrouville, Pierre Meyer.
If this gentleman is followed by the city's social service, it is certainly following this support work, but we cannot intervene, we have neither the means nor the right!
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