• On November 11, nearly 250 migrants disembarked from the SOS Méditerranée humanitarian ship in Toulon.

  • French authorities have set up a closed area in a holiday center on the Giens peninsula from which migrants shipwrecked in the Mediterranean cannot leave.

  • An association demanded an end to this “deprivation of liberty”.

A request from the National Association for Border Assistance for Foreigners (Anafé) asking for an end to "deprivation of liberty" for migrants rescued by the humanitarian ship Ocean Viking and placed in a closed waiting area in Hyères (Var ) was rejected on Tuesday.



Anafé asked, among other things, the interim relief judge of the Toulon administrative court that the creation, by prefectural decree, of this "waiting area" in a holiday center on the Giens peninsula from where the migrants shipwrecked in the Mediterranean can not get out, be suspended.

She argued in particular of a "misuse of power" by the State and asked that the authorities be ordered to "immediately put an end to the deprivation of liberty of all the people who are in this area" and "to direct them towards a place of accommodation capable of accommodating them, taking into account their family composition and their state of health”.

Respond to the urgency of the situation

The summary judge, however, considered that the prefect of Var had to create this closed area "to respond to the urgency that there was to welcome nearly 250 people from different countries, in order to provide them with care made urgent by difficulties encountered during their journey.

She also cites the need "to guarantee their safety in a political context marked by the instrumentalization of the collective arrival of migrants by the far right", according to a copy of the judgment.

Admittedly noting that Anafé did not have access to the military port of Toulon when the migrants arrived, but that this association can on the other hand access the center of Hyères, the judge therefore rejected the requests.

188 people in the waiting area

The Ocean Viking, a ship chartered by the NGO SOS Méditerranée in partnership with the International Federation of the Red Cross, had rescued 234 people, men, women and children, threatened with shipwreck off the coast of Libya at the end of October.

Since the beginning of the year, 1,891 people trying to reach Europe have disappeared in the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

After Italy refused to grant a safe port to the Ocean Viking, as provided for in maritime law, France agreed to let the surviving migrants disembark in Toulon on Friday, placing most of them in this area. waiting area closed in Hyères, with the exception of 44 unaccompanied minors and two hospitalized people.

Monday evening, 188 of these surviving migrants, who all intend to seek asylum, were still in the waiting area, according to the prefecture.

Since Monday, the liberty and detention judges have also been ruling on whether or not to extend this deprivation of liberty for each of the migrants.

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  • Company

  • Toulon

  • Paca

  • Migrants

  • Mediterranean

  • Refugees