Immigrants sitting together inside the so-called Squat Gambetta in Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburban area east of Paris. Photo / Dmitry Kostyukov, The New York Times
The Games brought billions to redevelop this Paris suburb. What will the thousands of homeless people who live there do?
The building, once a warehouse, apartments and offices, is a temporary home – with one shower – for 60 adults and children. On the ground floor, rats sprint under plastic chairs and parked baby strollers. The stench of damp clothes and clogged toilets overpowers the strong scents of tomato and spices from the makeshift kitchenettes on upper floors. In the inner courtyard, laughter echoes as children scoop up giggling babies and gently swing them skyward.
This is a so-called squat in Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburban area east of Paris that at one time was an industrial district. Now, it is a place with trendy cafes and high-fashion houses, as well as abandoned factories and spaces like the warehouse, which have become unauthorised housing for homeless people and immigrants.
Mariam Komara, 40, an immigrant in France without legal permission from the Ivory Coast, has lived there since last year. The other day she was getting ready to go to court to argue that she has the right to stay.
“It may not be ideal, but it’s the best I have, and it’s a safe place to sleep,” she said one recent evening.
This week, though, Seine-Saint-Denis will become the thumping heart of the Paris Olympics – with housing for thousands of athletes in the nearby Olympic Village – and ground zero for one of France’s central dilemmas.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have arrived in France in recent years, and nowhere is this more true than in the gritty suburb nestled in the shadow of the City of Light. Roughly a third of the more than 1.6 million people living in Seine-Saint-Denis are immigrants – the highest percentage in the country. The influx has strained the housing stock, and the government.
In Seine-Saint-Denis, thousands live in street encampments, shelters or abandoned buildings like the former warehouse, more than in any other administrative district in France, according to a 2021 report by France’s housing authority. To many in the area, the squats are eyesores, standing in the way of a long overdue revitalisation.
Building owners often go to court seeking eviction orders, and a new law from last year has made life easier for them by shortening the eviction procedure and imposing substantial fines and prison sentences on squatters.
But solutions for the housing crunch are hard to find. There are not enough homeless shelters. The pressure to tighten border controls and increase the deportation of immigrants is high.
“You have people who continue to arrive in France and Europe every day,” said Serge Grouard, mayor of Orléans, south of Paris, who raised concerns in February about migrants being relocated to his city for the Olympics without notification. “The government sweeps it all under the rug,” he said. “And when we do talk about it, we’re dangerous extremists. Except that three-quarters of the French population are fed up.”
France has invested billions in Seine-Saint-Denis for the Games, hoping that the event and its aftermath will lift the area.
Many in the district have welcomed the changes. “We should have new sports facilities that will enable us to do health-oriented sports activities,” said Malo Le Boubennec, events manager of the Seine-Saint-Denis sports clubs organisation. “It can positively impact housing, residents and the department.”
But sprucing up has led to the closing of dozens of squats, evicting over 3000 people. And the French government has bused many evicted individuals out of Paris ahead of the Olympics, promising housing but often leaving them stranded in unfamiliar locations like Orléans – or facing deportation.
In spring 2023, some 500 squatters were kicked out of what used to be a cement factory within earshot of the Olympic Village. Another building was recently shut down next to the Seine River walkway to the Stade de France.
Days before the Games are scheduled to start, a few squats remain. Squat Gambetta, named by activists after its street name, is where Komara lives with her husband.
Komara travelled to France last year to join her husband, who had come in 2022. Despite his occasional car mechanic work, Komara said, they could not afford permanent housing. They also found no space in emergency shelters. For months, she said, they slept on chairs in subway stations. One night, she fell victim to a theft that left her without her phone and passport and a with knife wound on her right hand.
A stranger told her of the vacant building where she now lives. The other occupants are also mostly West African women, along with their children.
Only the children seem to notice the darting rats. Anju, 14, tall with braided hair and a large gap between her front teeth, called the rodents lucky.
“At least they don’t have to pay rent,” she said.
Komara spends every day, she said, dialling 115, the emergency housing centre, praying that an operator will answer and offer space in a shelter. Occasionally, after hours of waiting, a response comes, only to report full shelters.
But time is against her. This year, she and the other occupants received a court order to leave the building by April, and the police could evict them at any moment.
Fighting to stay longer, she and other residents went to court twice.
“We are 60 people, sir,” Komara told the judge this month. “There are 15 children, some women are pregnant and there are small babies. We cannot survive on the streets.”
Carcasses of former squats can be seen all across Seine-Saint-Denis, some razed or guarded by security guards, others armed with alarm systems or fortified with cement walls. Every squat eviction sends dozens to hundreds of people back to the streets, packing the last surviving squats in return.
Thomas Astrup, an activist who has been opening squats in Seine-Saint-Denis for the past five years, defended them as part of the cityscape.
“Squats are places rich in diversity and community life,” he said. “Many people would find themselves on the streets without them.”
Some also are places for informal social activities, like one, called the Bathyscaphe, where a non-profit runs French classes for youths who live in shelters or street encampments. It also holds concerts and art workshops.
Some city officials and landlords sympathise with squatters and have asked France’s Interior Ministry to help find shelters for people who are evicted.
Inside the courtroom where Komara spoke, the judge eventually postponed the hearing to August 5, midway through the Olympics. No decisions would be made that day.
Back under her temporary roof, Komara continued dialling 115.
After nine months of calling, she received a text last week.
A shelter near Charles de Gaulle Airport, about a half-hour north, had space available. For exactly how long, she was not sure. But it meant she would leave Seine-Saint-Denis.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Sarah Hurtes
Photographs by: Dmitry Kostyukov
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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