6 June 2024 - Melissa Chemam
Official inauguration of the "Franchissement Urbain Pleyel" pedestrian footbridge connecting the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic athletes' village to Olympic event venues, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on May 16, 2024. Photo credits: Thomas SAMSON / AFP
With the Olympic Games coming up in Paris, French authorities have started to “prepare” some of the sport venues and neighbourhoods, especially in Seine-Saint-Denis (93), just north of the capital, a "département" (aka district or borough) where a lot of the facilities are installed, but also students will be forced to leave their accommodation for the summer.
The Paris Olympics are set to run from 26 July to 11 August, followed by the Paralympics from 28 August to 8 September.
The 93 is one of the most populous, multicultural and poorest of the country, but the Olympic committee wants it to shine…
NGOs, including campaign group ‘Revers de la Médaille’ (The Other Side of the Medal), have alerted on issues, and published a report describing the French methods as “social cleansing”.
‘The Other Side of the Medal’ group brings together 80 different charities In their new report, the group says Paris’s authorities are following a “playbook” used by other Olympic host cities to crack down on migrants, squatters, homeless people and sex workers.
The report released early June says: "We hoped that this edition would be different from previous ones and we made suggestions over a long period in this regard. Today we can state that Paris 2024 will be no different from previous editions and will truly accelerate the exclusion of the most vulnerable."
The report shows notably how French police clear squats, migrant camps, and chase away homeless people from Paris streets, ahead of the Olympic games, with 26 operations to clear migrant camps so far in 2024, "almost the same as for the whole of the year 2022” (there were 30). Since April last year, a total of 10 squats used by migrants – including a former factory close to the Olympic village – had been cleared, affecting 1,967 people.
At least two thirds of 6,000 migrants were sent to regional shelters outside of the Paris region under a policy defended by the French authorities as a means of relieving housing pressure in the capital. The report also challenges French ministers and police chiefs who claim the crackdown is not connected with the Olympics. "This argument was weak before and today it is totally unconvincing," the report concludes.
"This summer, Paris and its region will be able to present themselves in a way that authorities see as favourable: a sterile 'City of Light', with its misery almost invisible, without important informal areas of life, 'clean' neighbourhoods and woods, without beggars, drug use or sex work," the report concluded.
The collective has organised a series of protests to raise awareness about its work, including projecting "We are not ready" on to the Arc de Triomphe and its own name on to the headquarters of the organising committee.
Other NGOs have reported similar concerns. And the UN's special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, has also backed their finding.
When asked for comment on the latest report, the Paris 2024 organising committee stressed it was not responsible for social policies or policing. The social affairs ministry said it "took the concerns seriously" and had "regularly consulted" charities.
The cabinet director of the Paris regional prefect, Christophe Noel du Payrat, responsible for policing and security, defended the policies of the French government, suggesting the "Other Side of the Medal" was unrealistic.
The Seine-Saint-Denis region, Stephane Troussel, said last week that the Games should draw attention to the capital's housing problems, telling reporters: "I would like it to be a moment of awareness for the fact that the emergency shelters in the Paris region are completely full and we need more places".
The Muslim population is estimated to represent the largest religious community in Seine-Saint-Denis, coming from West Africa, the Arab world or other former French colonies like the Comoros Islands, with an estimation of around 700 000 believers.
Last year, the government also decided that if foreign women athletes could wear hijabs and muslim-related clothes, French sportswomen wouldn't be allowed to.
The French Football Federation (FFF) effectively prohibited Muslim women players who wear a headscarf from participating in competitive football matches.
The FFF was accused of discriminatory policy.
In response, some sports women have created a committee, named the ‘Hijabeuses collective’, and brought the case against the FFF before the highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État.
They said: The “decision is a missed opportunity to right a long-standing wrong and let us play, simply. Our fight is not political or religious but centred on our human right to participate in sports. Many women are excluded from football fields in France every weekend solely because they wear a veil.”
But the Conseil d’État sided with the FFF.
Anna Blus, Amnesty International’s Researcher – Women’s Rights in Europe, then said: “The deeply disappointing decision today from the Conseil d’État entrenches both racism and gender discrimination in French football.
She added the Football Federation’s ban on religious clothing "not only prevents Muslim women footballers who wear headscarves from playing in competitive matches, it also violates their rights to freedom of expression, association, and religion."
The decision ignores the Public Rapporteur’s recommendation to end this discriminatory ban and seriously undermines efforts to make women’s sports more inclusive.
It means that Muslim women football players in France will continue to experience differential treatment to other players, "in clear breach of several of the country’s international human rights obligations.”
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