WORLD WORLDWIDE WEST AFRICA FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #332 - Homes: making migrants invisible (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The Branly foyer in Montreuil must be demolished to be renovated. It is

a home for migrant workers, therefore single men (in France), mostly
Malians, but also from other West African countries. A support committee
was created at the call of the residents' committee. Gatherings took
place, at the official inauguration of a home and in front of the town
hall. ---- The hostel currently has 195 official beds. As part of the
"social mix", the new home will include 135 mini-studios and apartments
large enough to accommodate families. Residents made 5 demands when they
learned about the project (obviously belatedly): that the holders of
elderly beds be able to pass on their contract to someone in the family,
that joint tenancies be possible in the apartments (admittedly
illiterate, they spotted that 60 spaces were missing), that a door
accessible to the elderly and invalids be installed during the works,
that a car park be reserved during this same time for those who work
with their car (cleaning), and that rehousing is offered to
supernumeraries in a regular situation (there are approximately 250
supernumeraries, with or without papers). These demands were made in
April, with work supposed to start on June 1. It was 5 claims too many.
The answer: security guards to block the current car park, and all the
lockers have been ripped open and all their belongings thrown on the ground.
The project steering committee includes Adoma (the former Sonacotra),
the Prefecture, the town hall of Montreuil (communist), Est Ensemble
(the territory (1))... Of course, the residents were never invited. It
would be more than that that we ask their opinion to the interested
parties! A social survey was planned to find out who deserved to be
rehoused. Residents boycotted it. They hoped that it was a means of
pressure, this investigation being obligatory before the start of the
work. But hey, the law is not binding on everyone, everyone knows that.
In fact, as elsewhere, it is not just a major renovation. Migrant
workers' hostels are transformed into social residences, providing
temporary accommodation for people in great difficulty. The workers are
therefore now people in great difficulty, moreover not necessarily
migrants. This explains why only 135 beds are offered. It is necessary
to mix, to install families, by definition not present in the homes of
migrant workers. And that is why the 60 incumbents evicted by the
project are denied the possibility of shared accommodation in
sufficiently large apartments. "It's against the social project." This
is also why the transmission of the contract to a family member is
refused: the co-financing social organizations claim to house whoever
they want where they want.

This is part of the "Migrant Workers' Homes Treatment Plan", a national
plan set up in 1997. Initially, it was a five-year plan. A quarter of a
century later, the operation is still not over. For example, there are
still 19 homes to be transformed in Seine Saint Denis alone. Supposedly,
it is about enabling empowerment of housing and its inhabitants. In
reality, by claiming to fight against communitarianism, it is a question
of attacking Muslim religious practices and breaking solidarity. The
current hostels certainly have several beds per room, but they offer
significant collective spaces: canteen where the residents organize
their own collective kitchen (which allows everyone to eat, even those
who have nothing), cafeteria , spaces for informal commerce (corn on the
cob, cigarettes, soap, drinks, etc.), prayer rooms, meeting rooms. No
collective space is provided in the social residences. You arrive, you
go into your room and you close your door, and that's it. You can't go
anywhere. This is integration. Not even a place to cook. They are prison
hostels: control of entrances and exits, only one key per resident,
right for the manager to enter the rooms at any time. One might think
that moving from hostel to residence would at least give them the status
of tenant, an old claim that dates from the Sonacotra hostels strike in
the 1970s, but no, still not. As an illustration of the precariousness
of their status, evictions from these residences are on the rise: all
you have to do is accommodate your brother or son to be aused of
overcrowding, sufficient grounds for immediate eviction.

The pretext used to legitimize these measures is the material
degradation of homes. This degradation is only partially the result of
overcrowding. It is primarily the result of the lack of maintenance and
work for decades, despite the claims of residents. And if there is
over-occupation, it is because of the impossibility for many immigrant
workers to find accommodation. It's true that the street is much more
hygienic, it's outdoors at least.
The icing on the cake regarding the Branly household: the operation
should be profitable. We demolish the collective spaces and the parking
lot to build the new home (sorry, the new residence) instead, and then
we will destroy the old home to resell the land in a neighborhood in
full gentrification. Well, for the non-artificialization of the soil, we
will plant some stunted trees elsewhere, just to forget the splendid
trees that will be uprooted.
Everyone suspects that homes are destroyed as part of the hunt for
undocumented migrants, in favor of residences which will be very
difficult for them to access. But in fact, it goes way beyond that. It
is a question of breaking the existing solidarities, of destroying any
collective, architecturally and legally. No home was destroyed without
resistance, with sometimes some concessions obtained (in terms of
housing for "supernumeraries" for example). But all the means are good
so that the philosophy of the project is imposed. And when it comes to
Africans, the most brutal and possibly illegal means are used.

Sylvia

Note
(1) Within the framework of "greater Paris", there is a metropolis,
intramural Paris, and territories (with natives?), which bring together
the suburban municipalities included in greater Paris. Est Ensemble
includes 9 municipalities.

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3893
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