12,000 expulsions in Île-de-France before the 2024 Olympics ? The damning report from an associative collective

According to the associative collective Le Revers de la médaille, more than 12 000 expulsions of "publics in situations of great precariousnessé" have been ordered between May 2023 and April 2024.

12 545. This is the number of people in a precarious situation. who have been é expelled from Ile-de-France & the approach of the Olympic Games (OJ) in Paris 2024. A figure made public this Monday, June 3, in a report from the collective Le Revers de la médaille, which brings together more than 80 associations helping the most vulnerable people. Under "pressure" of the organization of the Olympic Games, the Paris region was "emptied of some of its most precarious inhabitants" regrets the collective.

A "social cleaning before the Olympics"

Between May 1, 2023 and April 30, 2024, no less than 12,545 people were arrested. expelled, mainly migrants. An increase of 38.5% in one year according to figures from the Observatory of evictions from informal living spaces. "It's huge and çshows in a documented way the social cleansing before the Olympics" denounces Paul Alauzy, coordinator à Médecins du monde and spokesperson for the collective in the columns of franceinfo. The collective speaks in particular of an "intensification" "expulsions from street camps of exiled people" and the will "to invisibilize" poverty. 

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On the other hand, according to figures from the prefecture of the region &Ile-de-France, relayed by franceinfo, over the period 2023- By 2024, 5,224 people have been employed. expelled. 3,958 last year, and 1,266 since the start of 2024. considerable discrepancy with the information revealed by the collective The Reverse of the Medal this Monday 3rd ;nbsp;June. The collective highlights “16 operations in four months at the end of 2023, i.e. half of the total” of expulsions of the year and 26 operations in the first five months of 2024, almost as many as for the whole of 2022. ;. 

Evictions in Ile-de-France and regions

The evicted people are now dispersed outside the Île-de-France region to be accommodated in regional temporary reception centers, created in March 2023, for a maximum period of three weeks with a promise of permanent accommodation. The collective sees this as displacement without “truly free and “informed” consent and deplores the “virtually non-existent” social diagnosis prior to expulsions. In addition, he fears that the “security perimeters and devices” and “the significant police presence” will make “public space increasingly inhospitable for people in very precarious situations, and sometimes with irregular residence”.”

A situation that does not exclusively concern the Paris region. Indeed, the report “points out “other cities hosting certain “tests”. The Observatory of Evictions of Informal Living Spaces mentions in particular the eviction of a shanty town in Bordeaux at the end of March. Nearly 500 people were living there, near the Matmut Atlantique stadium. The same observation was made in Lille, in mid-May, in the shanty town of Parc Matisse inhabited by 60 people.

“Dehumanization” and “lack of consideration”

At the same time, Le Revers de la médaille deplores the “harassment" and repeated “administrative checks" of sex workers, to “keep them away from public spaces". “Numerous expulsions" have also been noted by the association Aides, which manages a reception and support center for risk reduction for drug users (CAARUD) near Les Halles in Paris. Combined actions, in France and in the regions, which contribute to the collective's “dehumanization” and “a lack of consideration of individual situations”.