Police cleared 1,436 migrants from a makeshift migrant camp in northern Paris this week in what marks the 60th ejection of migrants from the area since 2015.
The evacuation in the Porte d’Aubervilliers, located in the north of Paris, took place at 8:30 am on Tuesday with a large number of officers being deployed under the command of the police headquarters of the Ile-de-France region, BFMTV reports.
The nearly 1,500 migrants, including 93 children, were also taken to 15 commandeered gymnasiums while police and others continued their operation by dismantling the tents and other contents of the site with heavy machinery.
The expulsion marks the 60th time authorities have cleared the area, but the prefect of the police has said that new surveillance will be installed in the area in order to prevent the camp from reforming once again.
Jean-Jacques Clément, of the pro-migrant association Solidarité Migrants Wilson, expressed some concern over the future of the migrants taken in by the police saying: “We think that the detention centres will swell and that a certain number of situations will not be resolved.”
In 2018, Solidarité Migrants Wilson largely gave up on its migrant aid operations in the La Chapelle area of northern Paris due to the threats and rising levels of violence from the migrants they were attempting to help by giving them food and other supplies.
The makeshift migrant camps, which are often plagued by drugs and violence, have also had an effect on taxi drivers in the area, with many avoiding parts of northern Paris in order not to shock tourists.
“When I really have no choice, I go through the Porte de la Chapelle, but I see that the tourists are not reassured, that they are afraid. Me too… There is a certain aggressiveness of people on the street. It’s not nice for anyone,” a local taxi driver said.