Tent Cities

[Happygoin]

It's a difficult subject, but I couldn't help but notice that on the trip in to the city from the airport last month, there are several tent cities along the highway. I don't recall ever seeing them before. Is this a new migration or did I just miss them on previous trips? Has anyone else noticed them recently? It just seems an odd place for them to be.

[mossie]

Luckily I don't have that trip from the airport, but it did strike me that there were more rough sleepers than ever. A bad sign of the very bad times we are currently experiencing. I watched a film on the TV last night about the bankers machinations which made very disturbing watching. That made the comment that there should be prosecutions of some of these firms and people. Bonuses of $30MILLION HUH

[denise]

No I didn't notice any tent cities along the way to the airport. But a couple of years ago I went for a bike ride along the canal St Martin/ Ourk and was shocked to see whole communities of people, men women children and old people, living in tent cities, shanty villages made from any bits of corrugated iron, wood etc t. And a whole large disused factory/ office building occupied by "squatters",....as well as Roma communities.

Apart from the fact it made me SO grateful for my life, I thought that in a civilised compassionate society such poverty on such a scale should not exist.

Presumably these people live below the radar. Don't have papers, cannot claim benefits or work legally. cannot get education or healthcare for the children or old people. Although they were pretty visible to anybody that looked....and then I wondered if these communities exist in the UK.

Whatever these people have left behind, it must be pretty dire and they must be pretty desperate to give it up for such a miserable existence.

I don't have any answers to the rights and wrongs of the existence of these people, I just know that I am very, very , lucky to have been born in the time and place I was, and very very privileged to be able to visit Paris as often as I can.

Denise
Love from England

Edit, maybe this explains who they are.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1263891/Homeless-migrants-living-rough-shanty-towns-told-work-sent-home.html

[Sandy M]

I also noticed the tents on the way back to the airport - wanted to ask the shuttle driver about it but other passengers were keeping him busy with questions and then when we got to the airport, I forgot to ask him - I don't remember seeing them before. My heart always goes out to folks I see living in a tent or on a sidewalk grate - as Denise said, makes me very thankful for my life and yet so sad for those who have so little. As a society, we don't do a very good job of taking care of the poor!

[Anne]

Many tent camps have developped in the past few years on the outskirts of big cities, mostly since Romanians have been allowed to travel within the E.U. They live in very miserable and insalubrious conditions indeed in those camps. The French autorities have been trying to convince them to go back home by offering them free transportation back home plus a lump sum of money. But they cannot be forced to accept or deterred to come back shortly afterwards as most of them do, so this policy has been quite a failure.

[Happygoin]

It's funny what you say about being lucky. I remember thinking as I passed them that, except for an accident of birth, I could be one of them. Instead I was on my way to enjoying a vacation in Paris. Gives one pause for thought.

And I absolutely agree with you, Mossie...those %&*#ers should be prosecuted and thrown in jail. It's disgusting.

[Jody]

Used to see a lot along the Seine but haven't seen them lately. There were a lot of outside sleepers at Pl Bastille thids trip. One group had taken over a telephone box. The women just seem to sit there all day with the kids. They don't even seem to be begging. Though I have seen people giving them money and food for the kids! I feel so bad for the children

[suzanne]

Very sad. Jim said he read somwhere that they were going to do something about those ugly highrise apartment buildings there.