In 1989, Prime Minister Michel Rocard launched an imperishable formula: “We cannot harbor all the misery in the world”. 32 years later, the problem remains insoluble. In the Toulouse metropolitan area, one after the other, the squats opened up, were dismantled …

Dislodged by a fire in February 2020 from Avenue de Muret in Toulouse, more than 300 people, some of whom were irregular migrants, had found refuge in Blagnac in two stages. First in a former Ehpad destined for demolition. Then the same evening of their expulsion, mid-October, in offices of 7,500 m², near the airport and the ring road, temporarily unoccupied due to the health crisis. They remained there eight months, until their expulsion, on June 16, 2021. Ordered by the justice on November 23, 2020, but delayed by the winter truce, extended by the Covid.

In ruins

“Two such big squats in a row to manage is hell. I have been there twenty times. The residents constantly asked us. There have been knife fights, trafficking of all kinds, prostitution… We have had meetings, organized mediations, ”Joseph Carles, mayor of Blagnac. Near rue Velasquez, the inhabitants of the pretty Layrac district could no longer bear thefts, threats, and the feeling of insecurity.

Four months later, nothing has changed. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, affable security guards and mastiffs prevent any intrusion attempt at the foot of barbed wire.

The buildings are in ruins. Experts have estimated the cost of repairs at 7 million euros. The report of a bailiff has 200 pages and 336 photos. In open conflict with their insurers (see opposite), the owners unveiled the site at The Dispatch.

Nausea

During the eviction, the police turned over furniture, looking for narcotics. But the mess was already huge. An incredible mess. In the parking lot, lizards frolic amid tons of rubbish, bicycles and boneless office chairs, strollers, supermarket carts, emptied fire extinguishers, car hoods, tubs, rusty washing machines. Or lint shredded by rats.

Inside, the smell remains pestilent, despite the hundreds of broken windows. Walls tagged, doors broken, ramps torn off, hectometers of bare electrical wires, bypassed and reconnected, dismantled false ceilings, excrement, water bottles full of urine, hundreds of empty beers, moldy pots, decomposed food eaten by maggots … The nausea.

Pizzeria, nightclub …

Donated by associations, mattresses everywhere, on the floor or on office box springs, in the middle of stoves, fridges, microwaves and countless shoes. Individual offices were sometimes rented at € 100 per month. The law of the strongest. Stove, stereo, sofas, the space in the “King” was the most comfortable. Collective open spaces, compartmentalized by makeshift partitions, made up of office floors. Sanitary facilities transformed into showers.

In a “room”, there is a miniskirt, mirror, make-up bag and 25 cm stiletto heels. In others, “the guide to the social emergency in Haute-Garonne”, a Christmas tree or DVDs of “Oui-Oui”. The Ramadan calendar and a naïve painting of an African village adorn the old “Boli pizzeria”. Further on, blackened walls: trees in the park were used for an indoor barbecue. A nightclub and “Condé’s cafe” are in such a pitiful state.

Former premises of Safran then of ATR, major aeronautics companies, only remain intact the exterior signage and a ridiculous placard “Please leave this place as clean as you want it to be when you arrive”.

The heavy financial losses and the anger of the owners

In December 2016, the SCI (Société civile immobilière) “Toulouse Développement Futur”, one of the subsidiaries of the Parisian holding company SPCM, believed in the good deal by purchasing a plot of 18,000 m from Safran.², including 7,500 m² recent offices on several floors, able to accommodate 350 employees. Between the ring road and the airport, between the Airbus sites in Saint-Martin and Blagnac, between two future metro stations… During the work on its extension, ATR leased for more than two years. A very large company was in advanced negotiations to succeed him. But the Covid and the crisis in the aviation sector have arrived …

As a result, the premises on rue Vélasquez had been empty for a few months. On October 14, 2020, at 10:53 pm, a security company, during its second daily visit, noted the break-in, “the rigid fence torn off and the occupation of the four buildings by many unidentified people”.

The SCI and the SPCM moved heaven and earth to obtain the expulsion, a time moved the next day (ie without long legal proceedings), and finally rejected by the prosecution and the prefecture. One after the intrusion, the finding is painful. “Our site was impeccable, awaiting rental with the economic recovery. After the passage of these violent thugs, entered in force and against whom our agents could do nothing, it is a carnage. It’s horrible, they broke everything, to take copper, scrap metal, ”protests Paul Taieb, the founding president of the SPCM.

It will be necessary “to raze everything and rebuild everything or to keep only the walls and the roof, we do not yet know”. The loss is considerable: “We pay our loans, without any return of rent, that is to say a million already. Guarding costs € 20,000 per month. Experts paid the damages at 7 million, excluding taxes. There will be 16 months of work ”.

The SPCM and the SCI are not at the end of their sentences. Despite an annual fee of € 29,269 (still claimed on June 28), their insurers, Axa XL and the Englishman Chubb have just let them go. They refuse to compensate them and have broken the contract (174,192 € in total) of their other real estate sites on December 31. “The guarantee is not forfeited. It is not demonstrated that the anti-intrusion alarm was operational. The loss was not declared until February 2021… ”indicated in particular Chubb. “There was a franchise of 150,000 €, it is the rule of the game. But not a cent on 7 million, it is a scandal, a scam in an organized band”, vituper Paul Taieb. For Vickie Guénoun, manager of the SCI, “the loss is colossal and the survival of our company is endangered. We cannot project ourselves ”.

If they finally gave up attacking the State, they took a lawyer “the refusal of discussion and the bad faith of the insurers”: “We will go to the end to obtain what is contractually due to us. The fight is unbalanced in the face of their power, but we have confidence in our French justice ”.

“We understand their dismay, they are the victims. We will write to their insurance companies ”, analyzes the mayor, Joseph Carles,“ worried about this unsanitary wasteland, close to homes, which gives a catastrophic image of the airport area ”. Which given the delays of justice, is likely to last a good time.