Over 300 Underage Migrants Camp Near Louvre to Demand Social Housing
© AFP 2023 / BERTRAND GUAY
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PARIS (Sputnik) - About 350 underage migrants have set up a tent camp near the Louvre in Paris, demanding that the French government provide them with social housing, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Tuesday.
All migrants are from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Maghreb states and other African countries. Most of them appear to be under 16 years. They are all without parents, the correspondent said.
The police are on duty. They are not attempting to remove the camp, waiting for decisions of the prefecture.
"I didn't know that it would be like this here. I have applied [for refugee status], but they [French authorities] don't believe that you are a minor, if you can answer all the questions. And if you can't, they say that you have no right to apply on your own. And I have no one," Abdou, a migrant who arrived from Senegal six months ago, told Sputnik.
Organizations that help migrants are bringing food and clothes to the camp. Several young men have gathered outside one of the tents in the hope of getting a pair of sneakers, according to the correspondent.
Meanwhile, the French authorities stay inactive and refuse to provide housing for minors, a volunteer of the Lunch for Underage Migrants Without Parents (Les Midis du MIE) association told Sputnik.
"They are all minors. The government cannot deport them, but it does not want to provide them with housing either. They have been on the street for more than six months. It is cold now and it is raining. The situation is catastrophic," the volunteer said.
The camp outside the Louvre has been set up on the initiative of some non-governmental organizations seeking to draw public attention to the problem of migrants in Paris, the volunteer added.
"They have lived on the streets, under bridges and near train stations — where they are not visible and where they have been unnoticed. We have brought them together from all over the city. It is more difficult to ignore this [the problem of migrants] here," the volunteer told RIA Novosti.
According to the volunteer, the organizations are now waiting for the evacuation of the camp, since in this case, the French authorities will be obliged to house the migrants somewhere.
"This policy is shameful. The government has the means, it just does not want to do anything," the volunteer added.
Last Friday, over 100 tents were also pitched outside the nearby building of the French Council of State, but the French authorities have so far not reacted to the situation.
At the moment, the French national reception system has 100,000 places to accommodate asylum seekers, according to a report published by the Refugee Forum Association (Forum Refugies) in June. The French authorities allocate 10,000 places to refugees in temporary accommodation centers.
In September, the French government announced that the 2023 budget provided for the creation of additional 5,900 places in shelters for refugees and asylum seekers in emergency accommodation centers.
