Many migrants, including families with small children, were removed from the Paris City Hall forecourt by French police on Wednesday as the city got ready to commemorate 100 days until the opening of the Paris Olympic Games.
About fifty people—mostly women and children between the ages of three and ten—who were huddled into strollers, wrapped in blankets, or covered in plastic sheets to protect them from the rain were taken out by police as morning broke.
The refugees boarded a bus in the eastern French town of Besançon, where they were placed in temporary government lodging after packing their possessions.
Concerned by the move on Wednesday, aid workers fear that Paris authorities will use it as the start of a larger campaign to remove migrants and other homeless people from the city before the Olympic Games without providing longer-term housing options.
Olympic officials have stated that they are collaborating with relief organizations to identify solutions.
A large number of the families are from French-speaking African nations, such as Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast.
Assistance organizations like Utopia 56 have given food, blankets, and diapers to the needy while also assisting some of them in finding short-term housing for a few nights.
(Africanews)
