Wednesday marked 100 days until the Paris Olympics gets underway – and also saw a mass eviction at France’s biggest migrant squat. French police were accused of trying to “clean up” Paris ahead of the Olympics which takes place from July 26 to August 11.
Dozens of gun-wielding French cops stormed the makeshift camp at an abandoned bus company headquarters in Vitry-sur-Seine.
The French gendarmes, clad in riot gear, were filmed breaking down doors and escorting migrants out of the building. Many migrants were seen clutching bags, suitcases, or trolleys as they left the site.
Human rights groups slammed the move to make the city more palatable to tourists this summer. The camp had become home to more than 450 migrants, mostly young men but also women and children.
Paul Alauzy of the humanitarian organization Médecins du Monde, said: “The squat was the biggest in France. It doubled in size in one year because of the Olympics. Last year, authorities cleared out migrants from near the Olympic Village, and many displaced people came here.
“There are spaces in shelters near Paris, but clearly they want to move them away from the capital, especially before the Olympics.”
Buses outside the migrant squat waited to take them to either Orleans or Bordeaux. One French official was heard telling a migrant: “You know in France, there isn’t just Paris. Bordeaux is nice, it’s warmer than here.”
Abakar, a 29-year-old from Sudan, said: “I want to stay here.” He did not want to leave Paris because he was enrolled in a logistics course and had been promised a job in a supermarket.
A mother from Sudan, Merci Daniel, voiced fears that she could be separated from her kids who were living in a shelter nearby.
The cities where the migrants are bused have also complained about the strategy. People in rural, small-town France have become increasingly angry over the busloads of migrants arriving from the capital.
The mayor of Orleans, Serge Grouard, declared that 500 migrants had arrived in his town over several months.
Mr Grouard said that he was never consulted before the migrants arrived in his town and that the undocumented people were left to fend for themselves after a three-week hotel stay paid for by the French state.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said this week that the Olympics opening ceremony could be cut back amid fears of an ISIS attack. He said the Games ceremony might be shifted from the River Seine to the national stadium.
Tyler Mitchell