Paris police evict hundreds of migrants ahead of Olympics
The move to empty a migrant camp is the latest effort to get migrants out of public view before the global spotlight is trained upon Paris this summer. Rights groups fear the evicted will be left even more vulnerable.
Police in the French capital, Paris, on Wednesday cleared a major migrant squat in the southern suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine with just 100 days to go before the start of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
The makeshift camp at the site of an abandoned bus company office had been home to roughly 450 migrants, mainly young men but including some mothers with small children as well.
Rights groups said most migrants there had documents and were awaiting social housing allotments.
Concerned aid organizations expressed fear that those now being ejected in an effort to "clean up" the city before the Olympics take place — from July 26 to August 11 — would not be able to find long-term housing assistance after being thrown out.
It feels like I've read a similar headline for every modern Olympics.
2020 Tokyo
2016 Rio
2012 London
2008 Beijing
2004 Athens
2000 Sydney
1996 Atlanta
Etc.
Edit: CNN, for a change, has a pretty good opinion article on this.
The Olympics are a good excuse to do a lot of things that are otherwise unpopular.
Nice documentation! I was thinking the same- this is literally every international competition.
Ah cool, Olympics dystopianism.
We can't allow the wealthy to look at the poor and find out how they're treated. Their two sizes too small hearts might become only one size too small.
"Scottish Olympian Mistakenly Deported Ahead of Paris Games"
two by two hands of blue
Ahh, takes me back to the ol' coverup cleanup campaign enacted for the 1936 Olympics... 😊
Takes you back? How old are you?
Good old times. I too, remember them well.
This seems to happen in every int'l sports competition, like the Olympics and the World Cup.
I think it was on a much larger, more reprehensible scale that year...
It's not France's obligation to allow migrants into their society. France is an awesome country with awesome people, that doesn't mean they should be held liable for non-citizens who forcefully enter their country. Their tolerance has been much higher than most countries. Look at China, what the fuck are they doing to help migrants? What about India, Russia or Brazil?