Migrants have settled in front of the Town Hall to try to obtain decent accommodation -

Ludovic MARIN / AFP

Rolande finishes setting up her tent on the forecourt of the Hôtel de Ville and takes a look at the Paris town hall building.

“Here, at least, they're going to see us.

They can't miss us!

», Breathes the Ivorian.

With 218 other migrants, families and isolated women mainly from Somalia, Afghanistan and Côte d'Ivoire, she decided to form this camp in the heart of the capital, on the night of Monday to Tuesday, in the hope to attract the attention of policy makers.

A symbolic action

Their goal: to obtain a roof and "something to live with dignity", after having known only the street since arriving in France three months ago, in the midst of a health crisis.

“Being here is a cry for help.

I am tired of the streets.

For a woman, it is very dangerous.

People are running into you, we're easy targets.

If we are not helped, if we are not allowed to work, we will stay in this cycle, ”says this 36-year-old asylum seeker in a green sweatshirt, in the middle of the hundred tents quickly set up shortly before midnight on Monday. , under the incredulous gaze of passers-by and cyclists.

Around her, a few hours before the start of the school year, haggard toddlers walk around the tents and strollers gathered in front of the entrance to the neo-renaissance style building.

“It's a symbolic action: the town hall can no longer close its eyes.

It is not normal that for newcomers, who represent 50% of these people, the street becomes an obligatory passage when arriving in France ”, annoys Maël de Marcellus, Parisian coordinator of the association for the defense of exiles Utopia56, at the initiative of this camp.

"Just let us have where to live"

The association, which hopes for a "redesign of the first reception", claims to alert the authorities for more than a month, without response, about the situation of these 107 families and women who lived for the vast majority in informal settlements in the edge of Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis.

They suffered "daily police harassment" there, according to Utopia56, and "must be accommodated in a dignified and unconditional manner", insists Maël de Marcellus.

"I want to apply for asylum, but in the meantime I have nothing", intervenes Ouga, a 33-year-old pregnant Ivorian, the allowance for asylum seekers being granted only after the filing of the file.

Arrived last month in France after passing through Italy, she recounts her crossing of the Mediterranean in a fishing boat, during which many companions in misfortune perished, "including my big sister".

"Let us just have where to live," she implores, her hands clasped, turning back to the Town Hall.

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  • Paris

  • Anne Hidalgo

  • Emergency accommodation

  • Paris city hall

  • Migrants