Paris Camp Demolition: French police evacuate around 1,600 migrants

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Europe

02:56

French police have evacuated a migrant camp in northern Paris - putting around 16-hundred people into emergency accommodations. But NGOs say the majority of these migrants now risk being deported - under France's new, tougher, asylum rules. Elena Casas reports from Paris.

This overcrowded camp has been home to around 1600 people for months - living with few toilets, nowhere to wash and little protection from the weather. When police came to evacuate them on Wednesday morning, most were simply glad to get a roof over their heads.

ASADOU MALIAN MIGRANT "Even an hour here is hard, never mind a week. It's like I've been in a little hell, and I've been forced to live here."

Asadou, like most here, wants to apply for asylum in France. But what few of the migrants realise is that the majority of them are unlikely to be allowed to even file an application - about three-quarters of them have already been fingerprinted in another European country, and that means they can be sent back there.

DOMINIQUE VERSINI DEPUTY MAYOR OF PARIS "This is where we disagree with the state, if they've crossed the sea it's obvious that they've travelled through Italy, they have to be fingerprinted there, but Italy doesn't want them, so when they get to France they are asylum seekers in the international law sense, and if the state doesn't allow them to apply, they end up on the streets for six months or a year."

French MPs recently approved a new law aiming to increase the number of deportations - halving the amount of time applicants have to appeal a rejection, and doubling the time they can be held in immigration detention. The law still needs to pass the Senate, but NGOs says it's already being applied on the ground.

ELENA CASAS PARIS "For supporters and opponents of government policy alike, what happens to the people living in this camp will be a test case for France's new, tougher asylum policy."

For the moment, they're being housed in school gyms like this while caseworkers determine who is eligible to apply for asylum.

MICHEL CADOT PARIS CHIEF OF POLICE "They will be fingerprinted so we can verify their legal situation and their right to asylum, this is so we can check if they have previously applied for asylum in another EU country."

The government says it's just enforcing existing European law.

GERARD COLLOMB FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER "We have to have the same rules as Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, wherever, because if not, people see where it's easiest to apply for asylum, and everyone goes there."

This is the 35th evacuation of a migrant camp in the Paris area in 3 years, and charities say that when migrants are sent back to Italy, they're often back on the streets of Paris within just a few weeks. Elena Casas, CGTN, Paris.