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IMMIGRATION

Paris police clear 1,500 migrants from makeshift camp

Police in Paris cleared out yet another makeshift migrant camp on Friday morning, with some 1,500 refugees including many women and children to be moved out to various locations in the suburbs.

Paris police clear 1,500 migrants from makeshift camp
Photo: AFP

The latest clear out began at around 7am on Friday morning near the Metro stations Stalingrad and Jaures in the 10th and 19th arrondissements of the French capital.

The site has seen regular unofficial camps spring up in recent months with migrants from Sudan, Eritrea and Afghanistan taking advantage of the shelter offered by the overhead Metro Line.

Most slept on mattresses or in tents handed out by local charitable associations.

France has received only a tiny proportion of the million-plus migrants who have crossed into Europe in the last 18 months, with many refugees seeing it mainly as a transit country to other destinations.

But authorities have struggled to accommodate them.

(AFP)

Police have regularly carried out operations to move the migrants out – the previous one taking place just a month ago – and the latest saw some 50 buses laid on to take the refugees to various locations around the capital where temporary accommodation will be offered.

Emmanuelle Cosse, France’s housing minister was on the scene to witness the evacuation.

“There are many families with children, much more than normal, they will obviously be taken care of,” she said.

The main question authorities are asked is where will the migrants end up?

Many of those who land in Paris are bound for the port of Calais on the Channel coast, where they hope to stow away on a truck crossing to Britain.

Most will be taken to buildings that have been commandeered by local authorities to be transformed into temporary accommodation, like sports halls.

More details of where the migrants will be housed is set to be released on Friday morning.

Earlier this week it emerged that the government plans to open special asylum centres across France for some 12,000 to relieve the pressure on Calais and Paris, where most congregate.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced last week that the city will open its first refugee camp in mid-October in a bid to take thousands of people off the streets.

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IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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