France’s homeless campers

Tents for homeless people on Quai de Valmy

As the weather warms in Paris, people's thoughts are turning away from the issue that dominated the news this winter: homelessness. We reported in January on the public demonstrations against homelessness: the red tents up in a trendy part of Paris. Usually with the coming of spring, the issue fades.. But this year, it hasn't as much as usual. The tents are still there. Plus it's eviction season.

You cannot be legally evicted in France from the beginning of November through March 15th. But next week, landlords can start to serve eviction notices to tenants who haven't paid rent.. or if they want to take over their apartments for their family members (to maybe charge higher rents later).

"Every year there are 130-thousand eviction notices written by the courts. That is a lot of people."

Benoitte Bureau is an activist in the housing advocacy organization DAL- Droit au Logement- or Right to Housing. This year, the evictions come just 2 weeks after the parliament passed a law guaranteeing a right to housing to everyone- though it's not really enforceable until next year.

Social contrasts on the street of Paris

"Now we are told there is a right to housing written into the law. So we're going to see if the state goes on with the campaign of eviction or not. There are two different law, the law on eviction and the right to housing. So uh- we're going to see."

This winter saw lots of public displays of displeasure with the state of housing in France. In late December, the organization Children of Don Quixohtte set up red tents for homeless people along the Canal St. Martin in Paris. They encouraged residents to spend the night, in solidarity. Then in mid-January, the DAL and another housing organization took over a building near the stock market, dubbing it the Ministry of the Housing Crisis. Homelessness was on the front pages of all the papers. Then Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin announced the right to housing law that was approved by parliament on February 22nd. That should have been a happy ending to a successful publicity campaign, right? Not necessarily says Benoitte Bureau:

"The problem of the law is that it doesn't oblige the state to very much. We thought to write in the law that the right to housing would provoke something that was similar to what happened with school. The state at the end of the 19th century said school is obligatory for children. So after that law, in about 10 years around 20 thousand schools were built. And the masters were recruited and trained. So we thought that a law on the right to housing should follow that principle. In fact the philosophy of the law is very different- The idea of the law is not to oblige the state to build affordable housing. The idea is- just the opposite. To go from 3.5 million people who are homeless or ill housed- then by eliminating them, come to a small number of people which correspond to the number of existing housing. Which is just the opposite from a universal right. They're going to move from shelter to shelter or stay in the slums."

Housing advocates have to be skeptical, in the face of what they say are three million people who are badly housed-86-thousand who are actually homeless. Along with voting in this law, the government also said it would find housing for the homeless people along the Paris canal. Some in Paris, some in hotels. Some even found themselves in a fort in a suburb west of the city. But that's not the end of that story, either. A handful of tents are still there-looking a bit older, and a bit dirtier than they were in January. These are the holdouts.

This woman, who says she is in France illegally with her three children, says she got emergency housing in a hotel.

She's not comfortable there, she says. She spends time at the Canal in solidarity.

Vivienne, a woman who has been in a tent on the canal since January 5th, says they've been able to avoid being displaced. They've been offered hotels:

Hotels to try to cut us off from our links in the encampment, she says. To separate us- but we refused. She may not be completely wrong in her theory that the authorities are trying to break up the movement. Members of the Children of Don Quichotte meet every two weeks with a government ministry. On Wednesday, several members were interrupted by the police. Augustin Legrand, who runs the organization with his brother, says he was pushed on the ground as he arrived for the meeting. He was not allowed in. Police officers said they were just following orders. The fight is clearly not over.

"I think it's not finished, because one of the explanation for uh- for the success of course is the fact that we are just before elections. so we have to see what is going on after the elections."

The presidential elections are in April, and the parliamentary ones in June.

"We don't know how it's going to be launched, and how it's going to go through with the next government. So we have to wait and see."