Paris cracks down on homelessness ahead of Olympic games

The French authorities are intensifying efforts to remove homeless people from the streets of Paris. Actions initiated at the beginning of the year are becoming increasingly drastic. Thousands of homeless immigrants are being packed into buses by the services and transported to other cities.

The New York Times described on Thursday the latest action to relegate the homeless from Paris ahead of the Olympic Games. Immigrants told the newspaper that the authorities brought buses to a squat in an old cement factory.

To all those who decided to board, they were promised accommodation elsewhere. As a result, people were taken and dropped off two hours from Paris. But they ended up back on the streets.

Paris declared war on the homeless back in April of last year. The police and city services cataloged the sites where people were living on the streets, but during this cleanup, actions were also being taken to eliminate illegal sex service locations.

Actions in Paris aim to improve the city's image. The Olympic Village, where athletes from around the world will stay, was built in one of the poorest suburbs of Paris. Thousands live in street encampments, shelters, or abandoned buildings.

In the past year, the police and courts have evicted 12,000 people from the city. "We were thrown out because of the Olympic Games," said Mohamed Ibrahim from Chad, who was evicted from an abandoned cement factory near the Olympic village. A bus took his group two hours southwest to a town near Orléans.

Among those relocated are asylum seekers, as well as families and children in challenging situations.

The organization Le Revers de la Medaille, which monitors the relocation of the homeless and represents 90 associations, stated that at least 20,000 housing units are needed across France. In the Île-de-France region alone, 7,000 units are needed to provide a long-term solution to homelessness.

Paul Alauzy, a health monitoring coordinator at Médicins du Monde, accused the authorities of "social cleansing" against the city's most vulnerable population. "The authorities are sweeping poverty under the rug," the activist added.

The authorities have mandated smaller cities to create "temporary reception centers." Some towns, like the 18,000-strong Bruz near Rennes, have protested.

Local officials complain that there is a lack of temporary accommodation. The government only provided buses without ensuring that there would be places to house the people who were transported. Some homeless individuals return to Paris on their own, so this cleanup of the capital proves ineffective in the long run.