French authorities complete razing of Romani camp near Paris, not everyone rehoused

Yesterday French authorities razed one of the largest Romani camps on the outskirts of Paris and police forced between 200 – 300 people to evacuate the site. The Associated Press reports that the local authority of the municipality of La Courneuve promised to provide substitute accommodation for the displaced, but only a few individuals received it, namely, mothers with children and persons with illnesses.  

Roughly 50 helpless Romani people who do not know what to do now have ended up in the center of La Courneuve. Representatives of the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, which is northeast of Paris, said approximately 60 children, people with illnesses, and women received accommodation.  

The municipality claimed to have arranged for temporary accommodation for the rest of the displaced persons in residential hotels. Those arrangements, however, were for a mere 12 rooms for those most in need.

Everyone not offered substitute accommodation was left to the mercy of fate. "They did nothing for us. They told me they did not have a place for me," a man who previously lived in the camp with his wife and three children, the youngest of whom is only six months old, told the Associated Press.  

After police forced the people to leave the camp, they drove bulldozers over the slum of huts and tents. The municipality was fulfilling a court order from February instructing it to arrange for the liquidation of the illegally-formed campsite, for hygiene reasons, among others.