Homeless migrants and aid workers gathered outside the Samu Social de Paris emergency centre on Thursday, calling for more shelter funding and improved access to emergency accommodation for people living on the streets.
Footage shows migrants carrying young children as they take part in the protest. Demonstrators are seen holding signs reading ‘The street is not a housing solution’, ‘Accommodation in crisis’ and ‘Do you want fluidity? Give us jobs and papers!’
One migrant mother, Fanta, said women and children had been sleeping outdoors for a week, with limited access to washing facilities and healthcare.
“Do you see my daughter? She’s been sick. She’s been throwing up. She’s supposed to start school in September, and we don’t know how we’re going to manage,” she said.
“We’ve had enough,” said another migrant, Abdou. “In Belgium, we haven’t seen people sleeping outside in the whole of Europe except France, where people sleep outside even though there are lots of empty buildings here.”
Nathan Lequeux, spokesperson for Utopia 56, said more than 250 people, including 110 children, had been sleeping outside the emergency centre after repeatedly being turned away by France’s 115 emergency housing hotline.
“This service is overwhelmed. Only eight percent of calls are answered, and of those eight percent, of course, the majority are not satisfied,” he said.
Lequeux accused the government of ‘systematically dismantling’ public services, including emergency housing and healthcare, adding that the number of homeless people had doubled since President Emmanuel Macron took office.
“We’ve now reached a point of no return, with workers who are exhausted from carrying out the institutional abuses imposed on them,” he added.
Jordan, general secretary of the CGT Samu Social union, warned that extreme weather, poor living conditions and limited access to healthcare were putting homeless people at serious risk.
“The number of people dying on the streets has skyrocketed. Today, we can only conclude that all of this is the result of criminal policies,” he said.
According to the French Housing Foundation, at least 350,000 people are homeless in France. Campaigners say a shortage of emergency accommodation, combined with extreme weather, is leaving many people increasingly vulnerable after the country recorded an estimated 5,700 excess deaths during its historic June heatwave.
Source: Viory
