Despite the cold, for four days, more than 300 young migrants who claim to be minors have invested the place of the Palais-Royal, before the Council of State, in Paris.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
More than 300 young migrants, who say they are minor, were preparing Monday December 5 to spend their fourth night in tents before the Council of State, despite the cold and in the hope of a setting shelter. “I have been here for four days and it’s extremely difficult. We sleep on icy soil, our feet are frozen. Water oozed on tents,” said one agency (AFP) one From them, from Cameroon and in France for a few months. The young man is one of the more than 400 young migrants who had lived for six months in an Ivry-sur-Seine camp (Val-de-Marne).
Pending a court decision to decide concerning their age, these young people, many of whom are from West Africa or Afghanistan, are deprived of accommodation and care by the ‘Childhood social assistance.
Since Friday afternoon, dozens of tents have been placed on Place du Palais-Royal, before the Council of State and facing the Louvre Museum. “A symbolic location in order to make passers-by react, while under a bridge in Ivry-sur-Seine, everyone does not care,” explains Zelda Gayet, coordinator for Utopia 56, one of the associations that carried out this action. His volunteers, as well as those of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Doctors of the World and Mids of MIE, have been taking turns for four days with young migrants.
“The government is in denial”
Ten young people have been evacuated by firefighters since Friday, due to hypothermia, according to associations. But the others remain determined. “They are aware of the difficulty, the cold, the danger”, but “we are talking about young people who have seen loved ones drowning in the Mediterranean”, explains Sylvie Brugnon, volunteer for the association Les Midis du Mie (for minors isolated foreigners).
Associations provide them with shoes, winter coats or even pairs of gloves. A few meters from the camp, dozens of young people wrapped in their coats and hoods are grouped around a food stand. “There is a lot of solidarity,” said a mine volunteer, who requested anonymity. She underlines that in addition to the associations “many people are mobilizing themselves” to provide help.
“The situation continues, and we have had no political response. The government is in denial”, criticizes Sylvie Brugnon.
The town hall of Ivry-sur-Seine proposed to host certain young people in a gymnasium in the city, but awaits the green light from the Val-de-Marne prefecture. Insufficient in the eyes of associations. “We do not want crumbs, we want the implementation of a lasting device,” adds Yann Manzi, co -founder of Utopia 56, for whom the reception of Ukrainians proves that “the State has all places that ‘he wants “.