Evacuation of Roma-Bulgarian Camp near Paris Olympics

A camp where several hundred Romanians and Bulgarians lived near the Matmut Atlantique stadium in Bordeaux, site of the Paris Olympic Games, was emptied of its occupants before its dismantling, announced the prefecture and a support association.

“All the occupants having been previously informed of the evacuation date, the interdepartmental management of the national police noted this morning a site free of any illegal occupation,” wrote the Gironde prefecture in a press release.

According to Eurorom, 450 to 500 people, including around a hundred children, lived on this land. The authorities, for their part, mentioned “nearly 200 people of Romanian and Bulgarian nationality”, installed since November 2023.

The prefecture assured that it had carried out a “preliminary social diagnosis” for this evacuation, carried out in execution of a court decision obtained by the owner of the land, the insurer Gan.

Between July 24 and August 2, seven matches from the men's and women's Olympic football tournaments are scheduled in Bordeaux for the Paris Games, including a men's quarter-final.

Justin Babilotte, chief of staff of the prefect of Gironde, recognized that the proximity of an Olympic site made evacuation "necessary" in order to "secure" the place.

“Preparing for the Olympic Games requires us to have a high level of security. And to do this, there are a certain number of perimeters established around the Matmut stadium,” he explained.

For several months, associations have denounced a "social cleansing" in Paris and the Île-de-France region, gradually emptied, according to them, of its most precarious populations living on the streets, in view of the Olympic Games.

The authorities, for their part, claim that 120,000 people are housed every night under the emergency in the Paris region.