French police evict hundreds from abandoned Paris warehouse ahead of Olympics

PARIS (AP) — With the Paris Olympic Games 100 days away, police carried out a large-scale eviction at France’s biggest squat in the south of the capital. Authorities, including dozens of gendarmes, cleared out the makeshift camp at an abandoned bus company headquarters in Vitry-sur-Seine on Wednesday.

The camp had become home to about 450 migrants, with images of the eviction spreading rapidly across social media. Aid workers are concerned that the broader effort by Paris authorities to clear out migrants and other people sleeping rough in the capital before the summer Olympics is troubling, as those evicted are not provided longer-term housing assistance.

“The squat was the biggest in France. It doubled in size in one year because of the Olympics. Last year, authorities cleared out migrants from nearby the Olympic Village, and many displaced people came here,” said Paul Alauzy of the humanitarian organization Médecins du Monde, who has been closely following the steady pace of evictions over two years. The conditions inside the warehouse were cramped, Alauzy said.