The French government has put thousands of homeless immigrants on buses and sent them out of Paris ahead of the Olympics. The immigrants said they were promised housing elsewhere, only to end up living on unfamiliar streets far from home or flagged for deportation.
President Emmanuel Macron of France has promised that the Olympic Games will showcase the country’s grandeur. But the Olympic Village was built in one of Paris’s poorest suburbs, where thousands of people live in street encampments, shelters or abandoned buildings.
Around the city over the past year, the police and courts have evicted roughly 5,000 people, most of them single men, according to Christophe Noël du Payrat, a senior government official in Paris. City officials encourage them to board buses to cities like Lyon or Marseille.
“We were expelled because of the Olympic Games,” said Mohamed Ibrahim, from Chad, who was evicted from an abandoned cement factory near the Olympic Village. He moved to a vacant building south of Paris, from which the police evicted residents in April. A bus drove them two hours southwest to a town outside Orléans.
@VOTA1 năm1Y
Is it fair to move homeless immigrants to make a city 'look better' for an international event, and why?
@VOTA1 năm1Y
How would you feel if your city prioritized a global event over the welfare of its most vulnerable residents?
@VOTA1 năm1Y
How might being bused to an unfamiliar city affect a homeless person's chances of improving their situation?
@VOTA1 năm1Y
Should the international community hold host cities accountable for how they treat their homeless population during major events like the Olympics?
@VOTA1 năm1Y
If you were in the shoes of one of these immigrants, how would you want the government and the local community to assist you?
