Gun-wielding cops evict HUNDREDS of migrants from France’s biggest squat as Paris ‘cleans up streets’ ahead of Olympics
HUNDREDS of migrants have been evicted by gun-wielding cops from France’s biggest squat ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris.
French authorities were accused of trying to clear homeless people from the streets to make the city more palatable to tourists.
Up to 450 migrants, most of whom are undocumented but awaiting social housing, were said by charities to have lived in the abandoned office building in Vitry-sur-Seine.
With just 100 days to go until the Olympics – being held from July 26 to August 11 – authorities today evicted the migrants and encouraged them to board buses to other parts of France.
Some had left earlier in the week, after authorities announced they would be evicting them.
But hundreds more – men, women, and children – were seen leaving today under the watchful eye of police in riot gear, clutching their personal possessions in bags, suitcases, or trolleys.
Individual migrants approached immigration officials and attempted to explain their situation in broken French or English.
They held their documents in plastic folders as they spoke to the officials from across a table.
Outside their temporary home, from which they were being evicted, buses waited to take the migrants to either Orleans or Bordeaux.
Abakar, a 29-year-old from Sudan, told AFP: “I want to stay here.”
He did not want to leave the Paris region, he said, because he was there to follow a logistics course and had been promised a job.
Another man said he too was attending training in Paris as a mother from Sudan, Merci Daniel, expressed fears of being separated from her kids who were living in a shelter nearby.
Paul Alauzy, a representative from medical charity Medecins du Monde, which translates to Doctors of the World, claimed the mass eviction was connected to this year’s Olympic Games.
Mr Alauzy said: “There are spaces in shelters near Paris, but clearly they want to move them away from the capital.
“Especially before the Olympics.”
Last month, the mayor of Orleans, Serge Grouard, declared that 500 migrants had arrived in his town over the course of several months.
He told reporters: “It has been proved that every three weeks, a coach arrives in Orleans from Paris, with between 35-50 people on board,” France24 reports.
Mr Grouard said he was aware of rumours circulating that there was a desire to “clean the deck” ahead of the 2024 Olympics.
Each new arrival was offered a three-week stay in a hotel at the state’s expense, after which they were left to fend for themselves, Mr Grouard said, adding that he was not consulted before the migrants arrived in his town.
The mass eviction comes after death cult ISIS threatened to attack each of the four venues hosting the Champions League quarter finals – including in Paris, and in London and Madrid.
The terror group’s twisted PR arm issued a disturbing message last week vowing to “kill them all”.
Paris Saint-Germain‘s Parc de Princes football stadium in Paris, which welcomed – and defeated – Barcelona on Tuesday, was on high alert.
A French Interior Ministry source earlier told The Sun: “Security will be enforced to counter any threats.
“Specialist anti-terrorist teams will be in place, along with soldiers outside the ground.”
French president Emmanuel Macron said this week that the Olympics opening ceremony could be cut back amid fears of an ISIS attack.
He revealed on Monday that the Games might be shifted from the River Seine to the national stadium.
Instead of teams sailing down the Seine on barges, Macron said July’s showpiece event could be “limited to the Trocadéro” or “even moved to the Stade de France” as a “precaution”.
“We will analyse this in real time,” Macron said, adding that the decision would be dependent on the scale of the security threat.