This camp, mainly made up of Afghan nationals, had reformed after a previous evacuation at the end of October by the police, who want to avoid at all costs the reconstitution of large migrant camps on the outskirts of Paris, responding to the policy called the «zero fixation point».
Started around 7 a.m., the operation ended before noon and «there were 956 people sheltered», told AFP the association France Terre d’Asile (FTDA), operator of the State.
«About fifty people who arrived later may not have a solution,» she added, pointing out, however, that the association’s latest counts showed 360 to 540 people living in the camp on 15 November.
«The need for first reception centers» to avoid compulsory passage through the street «is particularly increased at the moment because there are a lot of arrivals with a lot of newcomers, especially Afghans», explained Hélène Soupios-David, Head of Advocacy at France Terre d’Asile.
The people taken care of were taken on board about twenty buses to be transferred to accommodation centers, half of them in Ile-de-France, for his part indicated Nikolaï Posner, a manager of Utopia56 who works with migrants on the street.
«These are 80, 90% Afghans and a few people from East Africa. On the spot, the situation was particularly complicated because it was starting to get very cold», he added, deploring the «perpetual cycle » formation of camps and police evacuations.
Since the last operation on October 27 on this same place, with tents distributed above the rails of the Gare du Nord to the aerial metro in the Stalingrad district, «we have seen a significant increase in the number of people» who are added to those who had not been taken care of at the end of October, added the head of advocacy at FTDA.