Police on Thursday stormed the biggest squat in France, evicting hundreds of West African families from a squalid, disused hall of residence at one of France’s elite universities.
The decaying, five-storey Building F on the campus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in the south Paris suburb of Cachan had become a symbol of France’s social and racial divide. Once a smart residence for female students at one of the country’s prestigious ”grandes écoles”, it began being occupied by homeless immigrant families five years ago when it was left empty.
Students continue to live nearby in smartly refurbished blocks while the affluent neighbouring streets boast manicured flower beds.
Up to 1 000 squatters, including 200 children, many from Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Senegal, were crammed into 300 small student rooms with improvised wiring, poor sanitation and damp. But only half were asylum seekers or illegal immigrants. The rest had legal status to remain in France but, support groups said, they could not find housing because of racism and discrimination.
Most of the squatters had jobs, some men worked as security guards or builders, many women as nannies and cleaners for families in Paris.
As the Red Cross helped the evacuated families in makeshift tents on Thursday, non-governmental groups accused the Interior Minister and presidential hopeful, Nicolas Sarkozy, of staging the squat clearance for publicity.
Sarkozy, leader of the conservative UMP party, has used the summer holidays to make his mark on the key issue for voters in next year’s presidential race: immigration. Appearing on TV this week, he ruled out the possibility of granting resident status to large numbers of illegal immigrants, warning it would be ”irresponsible”.
About 30 000 illegal immigrants with children in French schools have recently applied for a special amnesty, but he said only 6 000 would succeed, and the rest would be deported
Building F, once dubbed ”Sangatte on Paris’s doorstep” after the former immigration camp near Calais, has long been an embarrassment to the government.
In 2004, the local student accommodation agency won a court order to evacuate and demolish the building to make way for a car park, but officials were wary of sparking riots if they forced an eviction.
‘Fire risk’
The local authority said on Thursday it evacuated the building to end the ”stalemate” because of a ”fire risk” to squatters. Several fires swept through dilapidated housing in Paris last year, killing about 50 people, mostly African immigrants.
Riot police and gendarmerie arrived at the squat at 9am on Thursday, just after many of the men had left for work, leaving the women and children. They evicted 508 people, including 141 children. One witness described an officer carrying a ram to break down doors.
”Welcome to the biggest round-up of black people in France,” said one white resident of a smart street nearby who opposed the operation. But an elderly woman shouted down from her window: ”Enough is enough and something has to be done about immigrants. Mr Sarkozy is right.”
Ghislain Thierry (25), an electrician, had lived in the squat for 18 months, sleeping on a mattress in a shared room. Born in Cameroon, he had been in France legally since the age of 13, attending school and then university.
”I have a decent job and enough money to rent a flat. You’d think I would be able to find a roof over my head without having to live in a squat, but not in France. I experience racism every single day, in every aspect of my life.”
Amadou and Kaloja, a young couple from Mali, also legally living in France, shared a room with their one-year-old son, who was born in Paris. They left the squat with no possessions but a handbag and a bag of nappies from the Red Cross. ”I just want a normal place to live,” said Kaloja, who would not give her surname.
Mariama Diallo, who runs a local women’s support group, said the conditions inside the squat ”tested the limits of human endurance”.
She added: ”When I come out, I scrub myself but I can still feel fleas. The place has never been fumigated. You can’t breathe from the smell of damp, leaks and decaying building. It’s nauseating. I see children covered in rashes, kids with allergies or asthma, but what can their parents do?”
The local council requisitioned 350 hotel rooms to house about 800 squatters. Those with residency permits could then apply for social housing. Illegal immigrants were to be taken to holding centres before being deported.
Pablo Krasnopolsky, of Education without Borders Network, said: ”This evacuation was a planned publicity coup by Sarkozy for political reasons. He is trying to appeal to far-right National Front voters and is being attacked on two fronts. The extreme right say he is too soft, other parts of society say he is too harsh.”
The Right to Housing group staged a protest near the squat on Thursday night, demanding accommodation for all those evicted. — Guardian Unlimited Â