It was necessary to expect it. At 14 months of the opening of the Paris 2024 Games, the French government wants to hunt the homeless. According to AFP, citing the Ministry of Housing, prefects have been asked to create “temporary regional reception facilities” throughout France, except in the Hauts-de-France and Corsica. The aim is to relieve the congestion in reception centers in the Ile-de-France region, which are occupied by thousands of homeless people, mainly migrants. The people concerned by these expulsions will be taken care of in these “airlocks“, before being “oriented” in a new region, “towards the type of accommodation corresponding to their situation”. Unsurprisingly, the approach of the French authorities is already attracting criticism, particularly from homeless organizations. Pascal Brice, president of the Federation of Solidarity Actors, explains: “There is a lack of emergency accommodation places” in the host regions, as well as a “political impetus from the Ministry of the Interior for a real support work“. As for Eric Constantin, head of the Fondation Abbé Pierre in Île-de-France, he does not hide his doubts about the possibility of “finding decent solutions in three weeks” to get people out of precariousness in the long term.
