Football tournaments, beach excursions, forest walks - although some migrant associations might wind down their activities during the summer, others are offering a wide range of activities aimed at migrants and refugees. InfoMigrants takes a closer look at what’s happening in Paris and other French cities this summer.
21 African migrants were detained by French police Saturday after they surged into the Pantheon mausoleum in Paris to push their claims for regularized status. The detainees will be held pending investigation into potentially "violating legislation on foreigners," the local prefecture said.
Rights group Amnesty International says French authorities are harassing, intimidating and even assaulting people offering aid to migrants in the north of France. Activists report that this "deliberate attempt" to discourage their work is taking its toll on their own wellbeing and on those they are trying to help.
A French court has sentenced an imam to two years in prison for helping migrants try to cross the English Channel in inflatable boats. The Iranian national had arranged several crossings from northern France to England.
The risk of developing diabetes is higher for migrants in France. A change in diet, lack of exercise and problems accessing regular health care and check ups are all contributing factors.
In Saint-Herblain, on the outskirts of the western French city of Nantes, an abandoned sports hall has become a squat for hundreds of migrants. The living conditions in the squat are dire, and the occupants say they have been left to fend for themselves. “Where’s the government?,” a 27-year-old Guinean wonders.
On Tuesday French security forces dismantled the largest informal migrant camp in Calais in northern France. The destruction of the Verrotiéres camp had been announced and planned several days ahead of time. It had been constructed on private land and a fence has now been erected to prevent migrants from returning.
Migrants seeking asylum in Paris will be able to receive free legal aid from students at the prestigious Professional Bar School through a program set to begin next week. The students will help with tasks such as writing up statements, and preparing for interviews with the refugee office or for court hearings. The initiative is aimed as much at providing vulnerable migrants with essential legal help, as it is at sensitizing the country’s future lawyers to the situation of asylum seekers.
Just this weekend, a migrant in a detention center (CRA) in the Paris region attempted to take his own life. Another attempted to set a cell on fire. One non-governmental organization working with refugees and migrants, La Cimade, has sounded the alarm yet again over the deplorable living conditions in the CRAs.
Around 40 people in a holding center in Vincennes and 70 people in a center in Mesnil-Amelot, both in the Paris region, are on hunger strike. They allege police violence and a lack of access to adequate medical care; they say that their goal is to highlight the conditions in which they are being held.
More than 2000 migrants are sleeping on pavements and in illegal camps in the French capital, Paris, according to the organization France Terre d’asile (FTA -France, land of asylum). And the numbers are increasing, warns the organization.
France has introduced a new law that allows gendarme, police and customs officers to carry out random identity checks at, and near, the country’s border port facilities. Depending on the legal status of the migrants intercepted, they are then transferred to regional reception centres.