In Lyon, young migrants from the Chemineur squat will break camp
Installed since June 2021 in a squat at Croix-Rousse in Lyon, the Chemineur, young migrants will finally leave the place. The collective “support/migrants” negotiated with the Metropolis of Lyon which will take care of them with the help of the prefecture. A welcome device but still insufficient to take care of all young migrants in a situation of recourse to be recognized as minors on the territory.
The arm of a crane passes and returns above the Chemineur. The noises of construction in the neighboring building create an unpleasant background noise. In this squat, opened by the collective “support/migrants Croix-Rousse”, around fifty young migrants have found refuge.
Considered to be adults after an initial assessment by the Metropolis of Lyon, they claim to be minors and have appealed to the juvenile judge to be recognized as unaccompanied minors (MNA). While, for a year, 350 young people have passed through the Chemineur, the inhabitants and their supporters will break camp.
On July 4, the Metropolis of Lyon will rehouse these 55 young people. The community plans to open a 40-place system to take care of them during their appeal. While waiting to be able to benefit from it, the remaining fifteen will be accommodated at the hotel. The system aims to become permanent and then to welcome other young people.
The Métropole de Lyon creates a welcoming place for young migrants
Since November 2020, a similar place already exists: the train station. The Métropole devotes 52 places there to young migrants in recourse. Supervised by an association, 80% of them are recognized as minors at the end of the procedure. Since May 2021, collectives and associations have been asking for the creation of a “Station 2”.
Sébastien, an activist with the “support/migrants” collective, welcomes this first step but believes that even more places are needed to manage the flow of arrivals:
“We are happy but it took a year to get to that and it is very long. And that’s not enough. It is not at all a bottomless pit, the young people do not remain minors in recourse very long, about a few months. We estimate that there is a shortage of around 150 places. »
Because the Chemineur is not the only place that welcomes these “mijeurs”, according to the term which indicates that they are, administratively, neither major nor minor. A second squat in Croix-Rousse, “chez Gemma”, accommodates around forty. Two places made available by the town hall of Lyon can accommodate about thirty. Finally, another thirty young people sleep in a municipal hall in the 1st arrondissement, available only at night.
When contacted, Lucie Vacher, vice-president at the Métropole de Lyon, confirmed the opening of a second station. “It should be effective for the summer,” she says. Little talkative on the subject, she specifies that it will be a common device where Metropolis and State will invest equally. If Station 1 is entirely financed by the Métropole, the local authority wanted the involvement of the State in this second system.
The squat of young migrants on trial at the Lyon Court of Appeal
Le Chemineur will therefore close prematurely. The inhabitants had obtained a period of 14 months during the trial which opposed them to the owner of the building, the social landlord of the SNCF, ICF Habitat. The opening of “Station 2” was decided for the collective, which negotiated with the Métropole and the lessor to set the conditions for its departure.
The young people and the collective will however have to face a second trial. This Wednesday, June 8, the case returns to the Lyon Court of Appeal, at the request of the lessor. ICF Habitat wants to destroy the dilapidated building to build social housing there. Work has already started on the rest of the plot. A project that the collective does not wish to obstruct.
For this trial, the stakes are lower for the collective, which does not play the sustainability of a roof for young people. Its members simply hope not to be ordered to pay compensation.
“We ask the institutions to anticipate before we are forced to set up a new camp”
The good news of the creation of a Station 2 is not enough to reassure the militants and the “mijeurs”. Sébastien fears the arrival of the summer season:
“We are worried about the summer because there are few hearings with the children’s judge, and therefore few care and places that are freed up in the system. We ask the institutions to anticipate the situation and provide solutions before we are forced to make a camp or a new squat. We still have a month to do something. »
As the legislative elections approach (June 12 and 19), Le Chemineur has seen several left-wing candidates from the 2nd district. The collective and the inhabitants have applied to all of them the same demand: the inclusion of a presumption of minority in the law, and therefore of systematic care.
The objective is to avoid the return to the street of young people after their first evaluation, especially when a large part is then recognized as minor by a judge. Another major project: the collective is asking for a change of method in the evaluation of the minority of young people by Forum Réfugiés, an association mandated by the Métropole de Lyon.
Claims still far from being achieved, which will surely come up against the lack of places in the “Stations” or in the child services of the Metropolis.