Roughly 300 migrants are camping out under the national highway in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis. Nearly every morning police officers order them to get out; and food distribution points keep getting pushed farther away from the heart of the French capital.
More than 200 people have pitched tents in central Paris in a protest to demand better care and facilities for migrants. When police tried to evacuate the camp, the Paris City Hall opened a room to accommodate the protesters.
In just one month, the number of migrants living in the Aubervilliers camp in the Paris region has more than doubled, from 400 in mid-June to around 1,000 in mid-July. While arrivals are expected to continue over the next few weeks, NGOs denounce the failure of the French reception system.
A group of associations and NGOs set up a camp for young migrants in the heart of Paris on Monday evening to highlight the plight of young people who claim to be minors. While they wait for their paperwork to be handled, they do not benefit from any care.
One week after a Paris court ordered prefectures in northern Paris to install drinking water facilities, toilets and showers near the swelling migrant camps in the area, aid groups say authorities have only provided the bare minimum and not nearly enough to cover the real needs of the migrants.
After years of service, hundreds of undocumented deliverymen have been laid off by meal delivery company Frichti in Paris. After the couriers took to the streets, they received public support from different organizations. Now the couriers are asking to return to work and to be regularized.
In less than a week, three migrants living in a temporary accommodation center in Paris have produced more than 1,500 facemasks to help protect people against the deadly coronavirus. The masks are given to the Salvation Army which then hands them out to migrant aid groups and other accommodation centers.
Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and lockdown measures in place in France, hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers are still sleeping rough in the Paris region. Local NGOs are providing help as best as they can. FRANCE 24's Eléonore Vanel, Armelle Caux and Nadia Massih report.
They come from all over the world and have recently arrived in Europe in search of a better life. On the road to exile, some have found love, others have just missed it. Some say they were able to overcome a daily reality of hunger, beatings and humiliations with the help of their loved one. Others discovered that their relationships exacerbated the pain of leaving home. InfoMigrants met some of them. This is the story of Nahid, a young Afghan woman who, while already on the route to exile, discovered that her husband was a very violent man. After living through daily beatings, even while pregnant, and running the risk of being killed if she returned to Afghanistan, Nahid finally broke free and started a new life. On her own.
Over 1,400 migrants have been moved out of the largest remaining makeshift camp in northern Paris. The French government has vowed to crack down on irregular migration, including makeshift settlements in and around the capital.
A floral workshop has been set up in the French capital to help female refugees and other vulnerable women win back their confidence by teaching them the delicate art of flower arrangement. The French charity Du Pain & des Roses (Bread & Roses) runs the workshop once a week in an accommodation center in eastern Paris. For the women attending the workshop, the classes offer a breath of fresh air, and sometimes, the start of a new career. InfoMigrants reports.
Toll-free phone numbers and slashed waiting times for an appointment with asylum application services… Those are just some of the recommendations that Paris’s administrative court on Tuesday handed the French government in a bid to improve the Paris region’s failing migrant services.