'Social cleansing': NGOs blast pre-Olympic migrant evictions

Early Wednesday, police broke up two migrant camps in the north of Paris where a total of some 230 people had been squatting, according to the Medecins du Monde NGO, which said that such actions were multiplying as the July 26 Olympics start date approaches.

"They've really accomplished a massive social cleansing just before the Olympics start," said Paul Alauzy at Medecins du Monde, who is also a spokesman for "Revers de la Medaille" (The Medal's Flipside), an association denouncing the games's social impact, especially the removal of migrants and other homeless people from the streets of the capital.

Jamal Ahmed,a migrant from Sudan, said he has been living under a bridge in the Flandres district in northern Paris for the past two years, except for one month after he was taken by coach to a shelter in Ris-Orangis, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) away. "But then they told me go get out, so I came back here because I knew there was space," the 30-year-old told AFP.

Already on Tuesday police had cleared another squat, along the Ourcq canal in northeastern Paris, of up to 250 people, associations said.

The authorities told them they could be taken to a shelter on the outskirts of the capital, or take a 5-hour coach ride to Besancon, in eastern France. "Most picked the shelter," said Charlotte Kwantes, spokeswoman for Utopia 56, an association helping migrants.

- 'I haven't hurt anyone'-

Wednesday's police intervention went off "quietly", associations said, saying city services removed the tents in the camp after their owners were gone.

French authorities have denied any link between such evacuations and the Olympics, but associations noted that access for migrants to shelters far from the capital had suddenly become much easier.

"Previously there were drastic conditions for admission," observed Alauzy. "But now, just before the Games, everybody can go," he said. "They're offering temporary solutions to be sure that the streets of Paris are cleared."

Some expelled migrants declined the offer of a shelter, instead leaving on foot, carrying sleeping bags and their other belongings with them in plastic bags, an AFP journalist saw.

They included Hassem, 27, also from Sudan, who said that he didn't get on the bus, "because in two weeks' time they'll throw us back out on the streets".

He asked: "Why are we being removed? I haven't hurt anyone, I haven't caused any problems. I just need a stable place to stay."

In a report last month Revers de la Medaille, which groups 80 charities, said that Paris was following a playbook used by other Olympic host cities.

In addition to migrants, sex workers in northern Paris and in the forest of Vincennes to the east of the capital had seen "increased police pressure" leading to identity checks, detentions and expulsion orders for dozens of people.

"This summer, Paris and its region will be able to present themselves in a way that authorities see as favourable: a sterile 'City of Light', with its misery almost invisible, without significant informal areas of life, 'clean' neighbourhoods and woods, without beggars, drug use or sex work," the report said.

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