What will become of the young migrants of the Jules Guesde alleys, in Toulouse?
For ten days, a hundred migrants expelled from an Ehpad have been camping on the Jules Guesde alleys, in Toulouse. Their living conditions are extremely precarious. To date, no alternative has been offered to them.
“We said to ourselves that in France we should have been free, but nothing changes, we still have the same difficulties,” sighs Mohamed. Originally from Ivory Coast, the young man who claims to be 16 years old, has been sleeping on the Jules Guesde alleys since his expulsion from the Ehpad des Tourelles on August 26. Last Saturday, he hopes to sleep in a real bed. A hope quickly swept away.
Several dozen migrants had begun to occupy the former Bellefontaine college, before being chased away by a small group of residents.
“We entered the building with the adults. The police came but left without doing anything. Then, young people from the estate arrived and started throwing stones at us, we didn’t want to fight them. We rushed to leave. »
Mohamed and his comrades in misfortune therefore retreated to the aisles. “It’s hard, there are no toilets, no showers. The most complicated thing is to be useless when you want to do a lot of things, testifies Seck, from Senegal and who claims to be 17 years old. Sometimes, especially in the evening, we have racist threats, we are told to return to our country. »
“Coming back here was very hard, says Jennifer Gruman, from Tous-tes in class 31 (TEC 31). There are no prospects at this time. We would like the solution to come from the institutions. And for the moment the weather is nice, but what will happen when there is a storm? »
Daily life is punctuated by food distributions and meetings organized by the collectives. This Monday afternoon, Jennifer Gruman describes the procedure to be educated and the role of the Department in the care of minor migrants.
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The key role of the state
How concretely can the situation be unblocked?
In this case, the town hall and the Department are not decision-makers, they recall. “As long as the migrants are adults, they depend on the State, specifies the Department. We are competent for those who are minors and have a decision of the children’s judge. The prefect is a pilot. If he organizes a meeting, we will be around the table, but at this stage, there is nothing planned. »
On the side of the town hall of Toulouse too, we say we are ready to discuss around a table to “help”. However, it is recalled that the issue of migrants and asylum seekers is the sole responsibility of the State and not of the town hall. The town hall can only intervene on the rehousing of nationals of the European Union. Town Hall as Department therefore point to the key role of the State.
For its part, the prefecture does not make any concrete proposals, and says “to regret this situation which is not satisfactory even though proposals were ready on the day of the evacuation according to the situation of each of the people present”.
“This is a subject of collective dimension which can only be resolved by continuing the partnership previously engaged in the evacuation between the State and the communities, added the prefecture. The prefect wishes to maintain this state of mind which underlies a complementarity of interventions shared between the different institutions.
The prefecture invites young people who declare themselves to be minors “to make themselves known to the services of the department so that their situation is transferred within the framework of the DDAEOM”. “For other people, if they do not fit into the two previous cases and who are therefore deemed to be adults, it is absolutely necessary to take stock of their individual situation in order to be able to study all the orientation possibilities that can be offered. .”