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Refugee shelter opens in Paris
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A REFUGEE shelter with beds for 400 single men opened in Paris yesterday, part of an ongoing drive to take asylum-seekers off French streets after the demolition of the Calais “Jungle” camp.
The center in a disused railway yard near Gare du Nord station will take in 50-80 people a day — the estimated number of migrants who arrive in Paris daily, most of whom end up sleeping rough.
They can spend up to 10 days at the site where they will receive medical care and advise on seeking asylum before being transferred to various refugee hostels.
Three Eritreans with backpacks and woolly caps were among the first to arrive at the site, where they were greeted by a “Welcome” sign in French, Arabic, Pashto, Dari and other languages.
The center is made up of a giant inflatable white-and-yellow reception hall and a 10,000-square-meter hangar with dormitories, bathrooms, a canteen and a games area. Around 500 people have volunteered to assist the 120 staff.
“The idea is to create a place where every newly arrived migrant can be welcomed and offered dignified, humane shelter,” said Bruno Morel, head of the Emmaus Solidarite housing charity in charge of the center.
A separate facility for families and women will open in early 2017 in the southeastern suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine.
Unaccompanied minors will be sent to existing children’s shelters around the city.
The opening of the men’s center comes a week after police cleared a camp in northeast Paris where 3,800 people — mostly Afghans, Sudanese or Eritreans — had been living in tents and mattresses under an overhead metro line.
Last month, authorities also demolished the notorious “Jungle” shanty town in the northern port of Calais — the main launchpad for attempts to smuggle across the Channel to Britain.
France’s Socialist government is anxious to show it has a handle on migration in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections next year.
Over the past year, the authorities have repeatedly cleared makeshift migrant settlements in northern Paris only for them to sprout up again.
To try to resolve the issue, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced in May she would create a refugee shelter operating to international standards.
Europe is grappling with its biggest migrant crisis since the aftermath of World War II.
More than 1.5 million people have crossed the Mediterranean since 2014 to escape wars, persecution or poverty in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
France has welcomed only a fraction of the newcomers.
In 2015, it received 73,500 new asylum requests, up 24 percent from the year before, according to interior ministry figures.
Authorities have forecast 100,000 new requests this year.
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