Le Figaro Bordeaux
As the start of the Olympic Games on July 26 approaches, a Bordeaux shanty town has just been dismantled this Thursday. Up to 500 people of Bulgarian and Romanian nationality, including around a hundred children, previously lived 200 meters from the Matmut Atlantique Stadium. They evacuated the premises early in the morning before being evicted by the police, which had been notified to them. The surroundings of the sports facility, which is to host seven football matches (including the men's quarter-finals) during the international competition, are being cleaned using mechanical excavators and skips.
“This evacuation is linked to the Olympic Games, that's for sure
,” denounces Léonard Velicu, member of the Bordeaux association Eurrom, which works for the integration of Roma in France. Before scolding:
“The last time there was a match, they
(the squatters, Editor’s note)
were forced to stay stuck on the site because access to the pitch was blocked.”
For several months, associations have also denounced a
“social cleansing”
in Paris and Île-de-France, gradually emptied according to them of its most precarious populations living on the streets in view of the 2024 Olympic Games. 120,000 people are sheltered every night due to the emergency in the Paris region, the authorities retort.
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Empty employment sites
Property of the insurer Gan, a subsidiary of Groupama, the land had been the subject of an eviction request in court. And for good reason: several plots of land financed by Bordeaux town hall and the metropolis, rightly classified as
“temporary integration space”
(ETI), are empty. Lack of proximity to public transport, retorts Léonard Velicu. Dislodged several times in recent months, this Roma community has already settled on new ground.