The City of Lies: How Paris wants to hide its homeless ahead of the Olympics

Paris is preparing to clear its streets as it prepares for the 2024 Olympic Games and this means getting rid of its homeless. The French government has proposed relocating homeless individuals from the capital, a decision that has drawn criticism from several mayors of neighbouring towns and villages who are expected to accommodate them. Sadly, this practice is not unprecedented. Countries like China and Brazil that have hosted the Olympics have in the past resorted to similar measures. Local politicians and organisations in France have raised worry about the proposal to encourage thousands of homeless people and asylum seekers to leave the capital and relocate to other parts of the country to free up space. From mid-March, the government began asking officials around France to create “temporary regional accommodation facilities” that can handle an outflux of homeless people from the capital, many of them migrants. French housing minister Olivier Klein explained to parliament earlier this month that the changes were necessary because of an expected accommodation crunch in the City of Light during the Rugby World Cup starting in September and the Olympics next July and August. Numerous hotels expect a high volume of visitors during these events and refuse to offer emergency housing for homeless individuals or asylum seekers. Many low-end hotels that authorities use to provide emergency accommodation to homeless people plan to rent their rooms at market rates to sports fans and holiday-makers. [caption id=“attachment_12644782” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The tents are for people facing administrative difficulties like migrants and asylum seekers. AFP[/caption] The government estimates that hotel capacity available to accommodate the homeless “will fall by 3,000-4,000 places due to these events,” Klein told MPs on 5 May. He said the expected fall “obliges us to ask questions and prepare for the situation… It’s about opening accommodation spaces in provincial areas for people who require emergency accommodation.” Finding lodging outside of Paris  Under the plan, homeless people who voluntarily left Paris or surrounding areas would be housed for three weeks in the temporary regional reception centres, paid for by the state, before being guided towards accommodation in the same region that met their needs. City hall says there are 150,000 people in temporary accommodation in the Paris region, Île-de-France, and an estimated 3,000 people, mostly single men and long-term homeless, slept in the capital, according to a report in The Guardian. Concern among local authorities Some of the proposed locations are already sparking concern among local elected figures. Bruz, a town of 18,000 people near Rennes in Brittany, has been designated to house one of the reception centres. It is scheduled to receive 50 people every three weeks from September. However, its mayor, Philippe Salmon, said he was not in favour of the centre being set up there, in what he called “unfit” conditions, the report says. “We are not in favour of the creation of a facility in our area, in conditions that we consider unacceptable,” he said. The proposed site was next to a railway line and “polluted by hydrocarbons and heavy metals,” he added. [caption id=“attachment_12644742” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Many low-end hotels that authorities use to provide emergency accommodation to homeless people but they now plan to rent their rooms to sports fans and holiday-makers. AFP[/caption] But not everyone is on board. The city mayor is especially miffed, according to The Guardian. Anne Hidalgo said, “There is absolutely no question of chasing anyone from Paris. None at all. Nobody will be forced to leave, nobody will be obliged to go the other end of France.” “I am angry about this being pushed on to the city [authority] because it’s not our role or responsibility and we already play more than our part in finding urgent accommodation for vulnerable people. Every week we are putting families into homes.” She said it was a longstanding problem “totally unrelated to the Olympic Games” and she had been asking the government to come up with a plan for years, the publication reports. ‘Positive in principle’ Pascal Brice, the head of the Federation for Solidarity Workers, a homelessness charity, said that “putting people up in good conditions all over France rather than in the streets of the Paris region is positive in principle. “But will they put in the necessary resources?” He said there was a danger of “putting people on buses” and then failing to look after them. Hadrien Clouet, an MP from the hard-left France Unbowed party, accused the government of adopting “the method of all authoritarian regimes: moving the homeless by force to hide them from the sight of those taking part in the 2024 Olympics.” Authorities in China cleared an unknown number of beggars, hawkers and the homeless from the streets of China before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with many shipped back to their home regions, reports said at the time. Brazilian campaign groups also said Rio de Janeiro’s homeless were being forced out of tourist areas in the middle of the night as the city hosted the games in 2016. The French initiative to create emergency housing capacity in small towns around the country fits a pattern under President Emmanuel Macron of trying to disperse migrants and others requiring social support from the densely populated Paris region. Efforts to create housing facilities for asylum seekers in provincial areas have already proved an explosive issue, sparking fierce resistance from some local people, far-right activists and mayors. A French mayor, who supported a migrant centre in his area of northwest France, had part of his house burned down in an arson attack, leading him to resign earlier this month. Homelessness is ‘priority’ Klein said the fight against homelessness was “a priority” of the president and that funds allotted to solving the problem had “increased by five between 2012 and 2022.” After coming to power in 2017, Macron gave himself until the end of the year to end rough sleeping once and for all. He later admitted that he had failed, citing an influx of migrants from Africa and South Asia as the reason. With inputs from AFP Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.