French police evict hundreds from abandoned Paris warehouse ahead of Olympics

With the Paris Olympic Games 100 days away, police carried out a large-scale eviction at France’s biggest squat in the south of the country’s capital. Authorities, including dozens of gendarmes, cleared out the makeshift camp at an abandoned bus company headquarters in Vitry-sur-Seine, Report informs referring to AP.

The camp had become home to about 450 migrants, with images of the eviction spreading rapidly across social media.

Aid workers are concerned that the broader effort by Paris authorities to clear out migrants and other people sleeping rough in the city before the summer Olympics is troubling, as those evicted are not provided with longer-term housing assistance.

“The squat was the biggest in France. It doubled in size in one year because of the Olympics. Last year, authorities cleared out migrants from the nearby Olympic Village, and many displaced people came here,” said Paul Alauzy of the humanitarian organization Médecins du Monde, who has been closely following the steady pace of evictions over two years.

The conditions inside the warehouse were cramped, Alauzy said.

The clearance operation will continue over several days. Among the 450 were 20 children and 50 women, the aid group said.