The objective was not achieved. While in 2019 the government promised to halve the number of people living in slums by 2022, in the end it barely dropped. According to the Interministerial Delegation for Accommodation and Access to Housing (DIHAL), there are today just under 12,000 European nationals – mainly from Romania and Bulgaria – in informal living places in mainland France, against nearly 14,000 in 2018. All origins combined, there are still more than 25,000 people who are there, estimates the collective of associations Romeurope, in its annual report published Thursday, May 19.
A “stagnation”, observes Anthony Ikni, General Delegate of Romeurope, despite the government instruction of January 25, 2018, which announced a “complete change of approach” in slums. It was then a question of breaking with the logic of eviction and favoring a partnership approach based on support, social diagnosis, orientation towards housing, etc. “More than four years later, this text has allowed the emergence of interesting projects in certain territories, recognizes Orane Lamas, member of Doctors of the World and administrator of Romeurope. But the overall finding is clear, this framework is too weak and powerless to change the situation, which depends on local political will. » That is to say prefects.
The collective recalls that since the fall of 2021, “the eviction machine is running at full speed again”, with no support solution in the overwhelming majority of cases. In the context of the imminent constitution of a new government and a new National Assembly, the collective calls for the adoption of a law “binding” who “imposes the dignified and sustainable reduction of squats and shantytowns”.
“Mix of audiences”
The Romeurope report emphasizes that public policies to combat slums are geared towards citizens of the European Union (EU) while for several years, actors on the ground have observed a growing proportion of nationals from elsewhere in these places. informal life. Thus, 45% of the people listed there are not from an EU country, according to DIHAL data. And this proportion tends to increase. “While the associations observe every day a mix of audiences concerned by this form of precarious housing (…) the prism of public power is no longer in tune with the reality on the ground”notes the Romeurope report.
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