Through Writing Grenoble
Published on
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After fear and misunderstanding, anger and emotion. In the aftermath of the destruction of the Alliance Park camp in Grenoble (Isère), where more than sixty people had lived since August, a support rally was organized on the forecourt of the town hall this Thursday 2 December 2021.
In protest against the sudden evacuation, residents, collectives, associations and residents denounced the fiasco of the operation and protested against the police violence suffered by these families from Albania and Macedonia. With the cold, they had found refuge in the Alliance library on Tuesday, before being evacuated by the police the next day.
“We were a lot of residents and associations to support these families. We were present all day yesterday, we were able to play, chat over coffee or tea, exchange a meal. While we were chatting the library has been surrounded by the police, ”explains Cyril, representative of the residents’ collective in support of families in the Alliance Park camps.
“This is not the face of France”
“We saw a violence unleashed on us. They entered the library, they did not try to communicate with us. They didn’t offer anything before gassing us, taking us out and clubbing us, ”he continues.
Among the evicted refugees, Sébastien lived in the camp with his wife and two children. Papers, reports, diplomas, certificates… He claims to have lost everything after the intervention of the police. “For the moment, I have no paper which proves that I have been in France for 10 years”, he laments.
“The police took our children like criminals”, gets carried away another, brandishing his phone showing pictures of small “frozen” and sick to “fall to the ground”, after temperatures of -7 ° C to – 4 ° C in the tents of the camp. “This is not the face of France,” he said indignantly.
“Yesterday evening, accommodation was opened for nothing, because of the police and the prefecture. Families have been left in the street because of the town hall ”which did not know how to organize the intervention, adds Cyril. In question, according to him, the bus chartered to take the families to a place of accommodation which arrived “half an hour, even an hour after the police violence”.
On the side of the prefecture, it is indicated that the occupants of the camp “seem to have been dissuaded by the militant associations present on the spot, to accept the proposed accommodation. These same associations then tried to oppose the cleaning and securing of the site previously occupied in the square, despite the proven unsanitary situation of this site ”.
A discussion between town hall and associations this Thursday
Also, to break the deadlock, the associations “exchanged at length” with the municipality this Thursday morning, assures the town hall. “I think they have largely understood our position”, summarizes Nicolas Kada, assistant for social action at the town hall of Grenoble and vice-president of the CCAS.
“Our goal is common: that people today on the street be warm from tonight and that they can sleep in a decent place of accommodation, ”he explains, adding that“ solutions with the prefecture and the metropolis ”have been carried out since September.
“People decided to enter the Alliance library, we let them do it,” adds the elected official. There was no damage or violence and the night went well. But this allowed to speed up our discussions with the state. We worked well together all day yesterday and found accommodation solutions for all those concerned ”.
Awaiting a response from the prefecture
This is why the evacuation of the premises was “decided by mutual agreement with the prefecture”. But “seeing the national police arrive, people were no doubt afraid and refused to hear the explanations that could be provided to them,” said Nicolas Kada. From now on, “we are waiting for a response from the prefecture as to maintaining their accommodation proposal formulated yesterday ”.
In a statement released on Thursday, the prefecture did not specify whether the solution was still valid. She simply deplored “the actions of associations which neutralized the efforts made by the public authorities to find an emergency accommodation solution”.
At the end of the rally in front of the town hall, about sixty people went to the Prefecture of Isère, place de Verdun, before returning to the town hall of Grenoble where they are now planning to spend the night.
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