France: after the violent fire in Vaulx-en-Velin, solidarity with those who have lost everything
The security perimeter around the building in the Mas-Du-Taureau district where a fire claimed many victims in Vaulx-en-Velin on December 16, 2022. REUTERS - SARAH MEYSSONNIER
Text by: RFI Follow
4 mins
On the night of Thursday December 15 to Friday December 16, ten people died, including five children, in the fire of a seven-storey building in Vaulx-en-Velin, near Lyon, in southeastern France. .
It is the second deadliest house fire in France for ten years.
This fire happens in a disadvantaged neighborhood, Mas-du-Taureau, where its inhabitants immediately mobilized.
Advertising
Read more
The fire that broke out in a seven-storey building mobilized nearly 65 vehicles and 170 firefighters.
Among the victims of this fire, the youngest were aged 3 to 15, said Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
Four people are still in absolute emergency, reports our special correspondent in Vaulx-en-Velin,
Solène Leroux
.
Thirty-eight families, or a hundred people, are in "
urgent need of rehousing
".
Dungui Aboa had lived in this building for two years.
This night of horror, he lived it, and assures that each dislodged tries to take care of him psychologically: "
I was alerted by people from below who were shouting that we had to get out because he there was fire
.
The neighbors above me were also making noise, that alerted me, so I went to the balcony and that's where I saw the flames, and I was like, "Here, that's it. is, it's over for me, I'm dead”.
Those downstairs, they shouted, they said: “No, don't be alarmed, the firefighters are coming, don't jump”, because we also heard people saying to jump.
»
Dungui Aboa saw some neighbors jump and salutes the memory of those who could not resist, dominated by panic, including a mother and her children: "
It's hell on earth, you see death coming and then you wait your turn.
I got out thanks to the help of the firefighters who brought us the ladder to the sixth floor so that I could go down while there were still flames.
I have a big thought for the victims, really.
They had the right to live and they did not want to die.
We are still there, but we could have gone with them.
I am a survivor
.
»
In Vaulx-en-Velin, an innate solidarity
And since the fire in
Vaulx-en-Velin
, donations have not stopped: clothes, blankets, or even food.
Everyone goes there from their shopping bag, sometimes transported in an old supermarket trolley.
It's simple, there are even “
too many
”: “
If we can stop donations, that's great!
»
Here, solidarity is innate, the inhabitants want to remember it.
This tragic event is obviously unprecedented, but this mutual aid is nothing new, insists Habiba, a resident in tears: “
Solidarity, it is from the little one who is one month old, to the older people.
We have always been united, and we will be until the end, I think.
But these end-of-year celebrations are going to be a tragedy
.
“Very moved, she came from the eastern neighborhoods to support the inhabitants.
Souleiman lives at the Mas du Taureau.
His voice resounded all day in front of the municipal hall which welcomed the evacuees.
He coordinates as best he can: “
It doesn't stop, and so much the better on the one hand, afterwards, you have to manage all that.
These are humanist values that are anchored in the town of Vaulx-en-Velin, in its inhabitants, and more generally in all Lyon solidarity.
»
The insalubrity of buildings and the inaction of the city pointed out
If fraternity dominates, it does not prevent questions.
Dounia and her friends have always lived here.
“
Nothing changes
,” they say.
“
The building that burned, I know they are unsanitary buildings.
The stairs are dirty, the garbage room is filthy, there is no fire alarm, nothing at all has been put in place.
How do you expect us to get out of this if the mayor does not make sure to move her citizens?
It's sad to say, but it's normal that it happened like that.
»
The metropolis of Lyon confirmed that the building was part of a set of "
degraded
" condominiums for which a safeguard plan had been voted in January.
According to the Minister of Housing, the building affected by the fire is "
a condominium in which emergency work had been carried out in 2019
" and "
we cannot incriminate the state of the building at this stage
".
Anger, for the victims and the dislodged, there is.
Just after their departure, huge human chains were created to convey the hundreds of donations.
From the smallest to the oldest, including people in wheelchairs: everyone wants to make a gesture, to appease the hearts of those who have lost everything.
(
And with
AFP)
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
France
Lodging