French police clear migrant camp in north Paris
Published : 04 Feb 2020, 23:11
French police dismantled an illegal migrant camp in northern Paris early on Tuesday and moved more than 400 people to shelters in the capital's suburbs for general welfare and security reasons, local authorities said.
The police department of the Ile-de-France region said in a statement that officers had evacuated the Porte de la Vilette camp in the 19th arrondissement (district) of Paris in a predawn operation.
Tuesday's evacuation has "made it possible to shelter 427 people, who were moved to accommodation structures in Ile-de-France where social, health and administrative support will be offered to them," it said.
On its Twitter account, the Paris prefecture said that authorities had decided to clear out the site as it "put at risk the health situation and security of the (camp's) occupants and the residents (of the district)."
In a similar operation, 1,436 migrants were evacuated last week from the Porte d'Aubervilliers tent camp north of Paris as part of President Emmanuel Macron's plan to manage the influx of migrants.
As part of its new immigration measures unveiled on Nov. 6, 2019, the French government introduced quotas for immigrant workers and restricted access to non-urgent healthcare for newly-arrived asylum seekers.
Thousands of people from Africa and the Middle East have been fleeing war and poverty in their native countries, leading to an unprecedented migrant crisis in Europe.
In France, they had ended up in the northern port of Calais, where the French end of the Channel Tunnel is located. They had attempted to board lorries and trains heading to Britain to seek a better life before the Calais "Jungle" was cleared by police in late 2016.