Paris Clears Thousands from Migrant Camps in Olympics Clean Up Effort

Hundreds of migrants living in camps along the Seine River in Paris were removed this week as the city embarks upon a cleanup effort in preparation for hosting next year’s Summer Olympics.

Paris police cleared 221 migrants living on the streets near the Austerlitz train station on Tuesday morning, with around 100 being transferred to accommodations outside of the city.

Over the past seven months, more than 2,800 illegal migrants have been removed from makeshift camps set up in the French capital to regional facilities as Paris makes preparations for hosting the 2024 Olympics, Le Figaro reports.

Despite its reputation as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in recent years the city of love has lost some of its lustre, with extreme disappointment among foreign tourists becoming so prevalent for the experience to earn the nickname “Paris Syndrome”.

Paris, run by far-left socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo, has long suffered under mismanagement akin to Democrat cities in the United States like San Francisco, including persistent struggles to perform basic functions such as keeping the streets clear of garbage. The French city has also recently been grappling with a major outbreak of bed bugs, which has grabbed headlines worldwide. 

Since the European Migrant Crisis of 2015, Paris has seen thousands upon thousands of migrants sleeping on its streets, with police periodically shutting down the camps, only for them to be erected again. 

Pro-mass migration activist groups have decried the clean-up of the streets ahead of the Olympics, claiming that it represented a “social cleansing” campaign.

The recent efforts to clear migrants from the streets of Paris have also drawn pushback from regional authorities, who object to being stuck with the capital’s problems as they are overloaded with migrants themselves.

Deputy mayor of Bordeaux Harmonie Lecerf-Meunier said in comments reported by The Times: “We are saturated, over-saturated. We’ve got families in the streets, shanty towns and squats. We cannot take any more people.”

Although the Paris government has not officially stated that the campaign is intended to put the city in the best light during the world stage of the Olympics, Médecins du monde (Doctors of the World) coordinator Pierre Alauzy said last month that the humanitarian organisation is “convinced” it was created for the Games.

“The goal is to get as many people considered undesirable by the State out of Paris as possible and send them to the regions” he said, adding: “It’s not much better than destroying favelas in Brazil before the Olympic Games there.”

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