Strasbourg will attack the State for its "failure" to accommodate people on the street

"Despite proactive action by the City of Strasbourg, the creation of 500 accommodation places, the opening of a gymnasium, our (municipal) resources are not sufficient to respond to this great distress and this humanitarian crisis. protected falls under the State, there is a deficiency, so I decided that the city of Strasbourg would bring an action for liability against the State, because of this failure", declared the elected EELV during the 'a press conference.

Ms. Barseghian did not give a date for the referral to the court, obviously the administrative court (TA), explaining that it would take place "as soon as possible".

“We are really coming to the end of a model. France is experiencing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with, in all the major French cities, hundreds of people (…), children, who are on the street in the cold, without rights, without access to care, in misery", continued the elected ecologist, deploring that the State does not act "within the responsibilities" and "the skills which are its own".

"Strasbourg is no exception to the rule", she added, inviting "all elected officials" and "all associations" of France who wish to "join this action for liability against the State".

Macron's "promise"

"I remind you all the same that one of Emmanuel Macron's first promises in 2017 was that at the end (of that same year), there would be no one left on the street. five and a half years later, of course, this promise has absolutely not been kept,” said Ms. Barseghian.

The mayor of the Alsatian capital was speaking Monday morning, when a migrant camp was about to be evacuated by the police, after the decision of the TA of Strasbourg which, seized by the prefecture of Bas-Rhin, has asked the city on Friday to dismantle it.

"Given the fact that the deficiency of the mayor of Strasbourg seriously undermines human dignity, the judge in chambers orders him to evacuate the camp within three days", retorted the TA.

Located since the end of May at Place de l'Etoile, on the edge of the hyper-center and a few dozen meters from the town hall, it has counted up to 200 people, many from Georgia, Albania and Macedonia, including children.

According to Floriane Varieras, assistant in charge of the inclusive city, there were still around fifty people left at the camp on Monday morning.

Installed in tents, some of the families camping on site have to live with rats, while the temperatures are lower and lower.

The town hall, which says it is at the end of what it can do in terms of accommodation, had opened a gymnasium in mid-September to shelter certain migrants.

"Humanitarian Crisis"

This camp had been at the center of several passes of arms in recent months between Ms. Barseghian and the prefect, Josiane Chevalier.

The latter argued that it was up to the town hall, owner of the land, to request the evacuation of the irregular camp to justice.

What Ms. Barseghian had always refused to do, already criticizing the State for not assuming its responsibilities in terms of reception.

“There has been a lot of media coverage of the question (of this) camp” because it “is more visible than the others” and that it “is in front of the town hall”, noted Ms. Barseghian again.

She recalled that the judgment rendered on Friday by the TA did not rule on the sheltering of the people who live there and that its evacuation will therefore "not solve the problem" of the homeless in Strasbourg.

“Hundreds of other people are outside in our city under bridges, in parks, in places along the highway or in squats”, underlined Ms. Barseghian, referring to a “humanitarian crisis”.

© 2022 AFP