Every evening around 6 p.m., around fifty migrants meet in front of Paris City Hall, accompanied by members of the Utopia 56 association, they are looking for accommodation for the night. Among them many families and young children.
Gathered on the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, like every evening in Paris, around fifty migrants, including many families and young children, are looking for a place to spend the night.
They are accompanied by members of the UTOPIA 56 association, which helps refugees and migrants.
Like Aïcha, aged 20, the young person arrived in 2020 from Mali in the French capital:
“There are a lot of families who sleep outside. I sleep outside or in the metro, but even there, it’s not safe because there are thugs. It’s complicated, there are no no other option, we have no solution. But it’s not just me, it’s complicated.”
The association manages to accommodate between 20 and 40% of people, for one or two nights. These are mainly women with very young children, from countries such as Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Senegal or Mali. Every day, Utopia 56 volunteers distribute food, blankets and diapers for babies, while wondering what will happen to these people, seven months before the Olympic Games.