• In recent weeks, there have been dry evictions from camps and squats in Lesquin, Ronchin, Tourcoing and Sainghin-en-Mélantois in a Lille metropolis where 1,000 Roma live.

  • A method deplored by associations of aid to the Roma who link this situation to the arrival of a new prefect.

On the banks of the Deûle, a few hundred meters from the Citadel park, it is a shanty town located in the heart of Lille. At a place called the Pyramids, around a hundred Roma have been crammed into wooden barracks for years. An untenable situation which should normally have ended this summer.

At the end of June, the Prefect for Equal Opportunities even came to the camp to announce that the shantytown was going to disappear.

Families had started to visit housing in the metropolis and contracts with social landlords had even been signed.

But since July 15, everything has stopped.

“There is no more sound, no more image.

We have no explanation.

It is a financial and human waste because housing that had been reserved for these families has been empty since July.

We are in a totally absurd situation, ”notes Dominique Plancke, member of the Roma solidarity collective of Lille Métropole.

"A tragic flashback"

For the collective, there is no doubt: this turnaround is linked to the arrival this summer of the new regional prefect. Prior to his appointment, evictions of Roma from slums were suspended until a rehousing solution was found. “For three years and the government instruction of January 25, 2018, the dry evictions of slums had been stopped. They were useless because they only shifted the problem. We found people wandering in the metropolis with breaks in schooling for children. With this instruction, the objective was: no eviction without a proposal for rehousing or accommodation. If there was no immediate solution for rehousing, there was a suspension of the eviction procedure, ”recalls Dominique Plancke.

But since this summer, the manu militari expulsions of Roma have resumed.

In recent weeks, there have been dry evictions from camps and squatts in Lesquin, Ronchin, Tourcoing and Sainghin-en-Mélantois in a Lille metropolis where 650 Roma live in slums and 350 others in squatts.

“The integration procedures patiently constructed by elected officials, associations, state services and people have been dismantled.

It is a tragic step backwards since we are returning to completely inhuman situations of increased precariousness, of people no longer going to school, of complicated access to employment.

Because no alternative procedure to these departures has been made, ”explains the member of the collective.

The prefecture does not wish to respond

But why such a turnaround if the previous operation had proved its worth?

For Bertrand Verfaillie, member of the Roma solidarity collective, the presidential campaign which is starting is playing a big role.

“We are on a totally repressive policy in the proximity of an election.

It is a total rupture which proves ineffective and on which the prefect will have to come back sooner or later like all those who wanted to solve the problem with a kick of the heel and the chin up.

It will not last even if we are currently on something disastrous ”.

To solve the problem, the group asks for a meeting with the prefect and the return to the application of the government instruction which had proved its worth.

When contacted, the North Prefecture did not wish to respond to our requests.

Toulouse

Toulouse: A camp of about fifty people evacuated by the police

Society

Montpellier: Nearly a thousand people live in a dozen slums

  • Rom

  • Solidarity

  • Lille

  • Prefect

  • Slum