Around 200 migrants, including some minors, were expelled by the police on Friday February 23 from a building at a university in Toulouse that had been occupied for more than a year, we learned from reliable sources.
“The evacuation of building 4R3, illegally occupied since December 2022 in precarious and dangerous conditions, has been underway since this morning
,” the communications department of Paul Sabatier University told AFP.
It was carried out
“with the assistance of the public force, granted by the prefect of Occitanie”
, following an
“expulsion order issued on November 21, 2023 by the administrative court of Toulouse”
, according to the same source.
These
“migrants, mostly minors”
were evacuated by a
“major police force”
, for his part declared Rémi Nassiri, co-coordinator of the Utopia 56 association for the defense of the rights of people in situations of exile and migration.
The police erected a barrier around the entrance to the building, dilapidated and dilapidated, while the people expelled, mostly from Senegal, Ivory Coast or Guinea, were gathered outside with their belongings, noted the AFP photographer.
“No proposal for shelter”
To justify the expulsion,
“the judge noted the inadequacy of the sanitary facilities within the building, the nuisances and disturbances constituting an obstacle to the proper functioning of the public education service, the dilapidated state of the building, notably electrical installations, and the insufficiency of fire prevention and fighting equipment
,” according to the university.
For his part, Rémi Nassiri regretted that the associations helping migrants were
“taken by surprise”
.
“The university presidency had promised to wait until March 31”
before calling on the police, he said.
For the most part
“waiting for recognition of their minority”
, the expelled people
“had no offer of shelter”
, he lamented.
The Departmental Council, according to which the building was occupied
"illegally by 267 people"
, specified that it had taken care of
"a single mother with a child under three years old"
and directed
"three young people present on the site"
towards the structure responsible. to
“evaluate their minority”
, according to a press release.