Migrants and homeless people are cleared out of Paris during the Olympics

PARIS — Carrying backpacks and small children, hundreds of people sleeping on the streets of Paris climbed aboard buses surrounded by armed police on Thursday, the latest group of migrants and homeless people to be driven out of the city ahead of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics.

The group of largely African migrants headed for the fringes of the city in buses paid for by the French government and into temporary lodging until at least the end of the Games. While some living on the streets were happy to have a roof over their head for the night, few knew what laid ahead once the world’s eyes were off Paris.

“It’s like poker. I don’t know where I will go, or how much time I will stay,” said Nikki, a 47-year-old homeless Parisian who asked that her last name not be used to protect her privacy.

French authorities have been clearing out migrant and homeless encampments for months leading up to the massive global sports event, which is an important moment for President Emmanuel Macron at a time of political turmoil. But the Games also have faced criticism as Parisians have complained about everything from elevated public transit fees to government spending on cleaning up the Seine River for swimming instead of investing in the social safety net.

Authorities also have been sharply criticized as they have bused camping migrants from the city center where the Olympics are taking place to the fringes of Paris or other areas. Activist groups and migrants have called the practice – long used in other Olympic host cities like Rio de Janeiro in 2016 – a form of “social cleansing.”

“They want to clean the city for the Olympic Games, for the tourists,” said Nathan Lequeux, an organizer for the activist group Utopia 56. “As treatment of migrants is becoming more horrible and infamous, people are being chased off the streets. ... Since the Olympics, this aggressiveness, this policy of hunting has become more pronounced.”

Christophe Noël Du Payrat, chief of staff of the regional government of Île-de-France that surrounds Paris, firmly denied those accusations and said the government has relocated migrants from the city for years.

“We are taking care of them,” he said. “We don’t really understand the criticism because we are very much determined to offer places for these people.”

He spoke as dozens of police rounded up migrants, blocking them from walking on the streets and putting up caution tape. When asked why there were so many armed police officers for a group largely made up of families, Noël Du Payrat said it was to maintain “peace and calm.”

The buses Thursday came after three days of protest by hundreds of migrants and other homeless people like Nikki, who slept in front of a local government office as athletes and tourists flooded into Paris. They railed against authorities breaking up homeless encampments and demanded better access to temporary housing.

Among them was Natacha Louise Gbetie, a 36-year-old migrant from Burkina Faso, and a 1-year-old son she carried on her back. Gbetie, who once worked as an accountant in her country, migrated to the southern French city of Montpellier with family members five years ago.

Many of the families relocated by French authorities are like Gbetie — from African countries once colonized by the French, including Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Senegal.

After an abusive situation, she moved to Paris. She was able to make ends meet working as a babysitter and sleeping in public housing. That ended during the lead-up to the Olympics, when she said access to social housing was slashed and prices of lodging in hostels soared. She said most employers in France don’t want to hire her because she’s an immigrant without legal status and she has felt rejected as an anti-immigrant far-right party has gained greater power in France.

“I think France is saturated. They’re tired of migrants, they want us to leave their country,” Gbetie said.

The protest group agreed that families would board buses to a province near Paris and families would remain together in shelters.

Despite the agreement, protest leaders expressed concern that the move would isolate migrants and said it was still unclear what would happen to the city’s homeless people.

Others like Gbetie worried for the future of her 1-year-old son, Richard. Despite being born in France, he was among those who had been forgotten, Gbetie said.

“We have children who are French,” she said. “They will be the future engineers and executives of this country. Think of them first and, for now, forget about the Olympics.”

At Place de la République in central Paris, a popular square for protests, they were trying to encourage people to do just that on the eve of the grandiose opening ceremony on the Seine River.

Several associations gathered for what they called the “Counter Opening Ceremony,” giving speeches about the cost of the Games. They said authorities have been using them as a pretext for social cleansing, by removing migrants and homeless people off the streets in order to preserve a picture-postcard image of the city.

“Even in these past weeks there was an archway under a subway line where people were sleeping and they put a wall of cement to stop people coming back,” said Paul Alauzy, a spokesman for the Revers de la Médaille group (the other side of the medal). “There is a quay in Aubervilliers where they put blocks of concrete with spikes on.”

A giant banner was draped on the square’s iconic statue reading “JO de l’exclusion, 12,500 personnes éxpulsées” (The Games of Exclusion, 12,500 evicted).

“Shame, shame, shame,” the crowd of around 200 people chanted as smoke canisters in the colors of the Olympic rings were set off.

Various banners were dotted around the square.

One read “La France, championne du mal-logement” (France, champion of bad housing). Another read “L’heure est grave. Pas de logements, pas de Jo” (The situation is serious. No accommodation, no Games). Another called to extinguish the Olympic flame and one flag depicted French President Emmanuel Macron with his hands through the Olympic rings as if handcuffed.

Noah Fargeon, a spokesman for Saccage 2024 — a group that has long campaigned against the Games, called the Paris Olympics “a monstrous waste of public funds.” He said the image presented is just a veneer.

“Paris is being transformed into Disneyland for the tourists, a LVMH (Louis Vuitton) image,” Fargeon said. “But on the other hand, those who actually live in the city are being moved along. Rather than put money into helping people get lodgings, money is put into repressing them.”