Paris, Nov. 24, (dpa/GNA) – French police on Monday night cleared a makeshift migrant encampment in central Paris which sprung up after another one was dismantled last week.
“Today an encampment was installed illegally in Paris’s Place de la Republique square. [Police] immediately proceeded with the evacuation of this illegal occupation of public space,” police said in a tweet also carrying an expanded statement.
In the statement, police said that “certain associations” organized the construction of the makeshift camp, which they said was “not acceptable.”
French agency AFP reported that police deployed tear gas as they cleared the camp, adding that the operation lasted less than ten minutes.
Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said on Twitter that images of the operation were “shocking” and that he requested a “detailed report” on the events from the Police Prefecture by midday on Tuesday.
The refugee organization Utopia 56 said the migrants had become homeless after clearing a camp near the Stade de France stadium last week.
The organization Medecins du monde, or Doctors of the World, said that the aim of the campaign was to make those people visible who the authorities want to be scattered.
Reporting from the scene late Monday, Utopia 56 said: “We are surrounded by police officers who are chasing away the migrants and dismantling the tents as usual without having a solution for where they should stay.”
Place de la Republique camp sprung up after police evicted about 2,000 people from another encampment near the Stade de France stadium last week.
Police have cleared dozens of such sites in recent years around Paris. But the unsanitary camps are formed again and again by migrants with few places to go.
There is a lack of permanent housing for the migrants, meaning it often takes only a few weeks until the first tents are erected again after an evacuation order.
Critics see the evictions as a purely symbolic political move that does nothing to address the problems of migration policy.
GNA