Wi-fi, cable TV and Paris hotel luxury for illegal migrants moved from tent shanty town
ILLEGAL migrants are living the high-life in Paris hotels complete with wi-fi and cable TV facilities.
More than 1,500 migrants were evacuated from a makeshift tent camp in the capital underneath the Stalingrad Metro station, after living conditions were deemed unfit for human habitation.
These people have fled war-torn countries, I get that. We will offer them food and shelter, but the rest, they will have to sort out alone
Under the government’s controversial migrant relocation plan most illegal immigrants were taken to reception centres located in the capital’s suburbs. However hundreds more were put up in hotels due to a lack of shelter space.
Just hours after the Stalingrad camp was evacuated, a bus dropped 90 male migrants off at Le Relais du Pavé, a 2-two-star hotel in the centre of Pontault-Combault, a town located on the outskirts of Paris.
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The migrants will be lodged at the hotel for up to six weeks, until a place is found for them at a reception centre, which is meant to be very soon. According to the French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, all 12,000 stranded refugees will have a room at a reception centre before the end of this year.
But the migrants have little to complain about. According to the French travel guide ‘Petit Futé,’ the Le Relais du Pavé has 130 rooms costing between €25 and €50 a night; each room includes a wi-fi connection and cable TV.
Monique Boone, the social worker in charge of the relocating the migrants, told Le Parisien that the men, who are Sudanese, Afghan, Libyan, and Chadian, had been able to “clean up” now that they have a proper ‘home’.
But the town’s Republican mayor, François Bouchart, said he hoped the State would react “quickly” to the housing crisis, and help his town deal with the migrants he claims he was “imposed”.
Hours later, on Friday night, another 50 migrants were taken to a hotel in Noisy-le-Grand, in the eastern suburbs of Paris; again, due to a lack of shelter space in reception centres in and around the capital.
The hotel, which run by Hôtel social 93, a housing association which offers shelter to people in financial difficulty at a low price, was due to be knocked down and renovated.
Construction work, which has been on hold for more than six years, was due to start “very soon” but has been put back a month in order to accommodate the group of migrants.
The town’s right-wing mayor, Brigitte Marsigny, claims she is aware that some of the migrants have lived through “terrible experiences,” but says she was given no time – or warning – in order to prepare for their arrival.
“These people have fled war-torn countries, I get that. We will offer them food and shelter, but the rest, they will have to sort out alone. I just hope that this situation truly is temporary, and will not last.”