Outrage grows in France after police clear Paris migrant camp
PARIS — Police cleared out a temporary migrant camp in central Paris, forcing people out of tents, chasing them in the streets and firing tear gas in a crackdown that fueled growing outrage over the government’s tough new security policies.
Housing and integrating migrants living in makeshift camps in Paris, especially on its northern edge, have become a chronic problem. Police regularly clear out hundreds or even thousands of people from such camps.
But the violent evacuation of mostly Afghan migrants Monday evening from the Place de la République was covered widely in the media and struck a nerve, coming as Parliament voted Tuesday to move forward with a new security bill. Critics say the bill would make it harder for reporters or bystanders to film instances of police brutality.
The outcry over the evacuation comes at a time of heightened tensions around President Emmanuel Macron’s broader security policies, which opponents say increasingly restrict civil liberties. Part of that debate has played out after a string of Islamist terrorist attacks over the past few months.
Footage from Monday evening showed that as tensions rose and scuffles broke out with some protesters, police officers trying to clear the square shoved people with riot shields before using tear gas and dispersal grenades, which explode and spray smaller rubber pellets. Police also chased some of the migrants through side streets.
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, expressed shock Tuesday in a letter to the French interior minister, accusing police of a “brutal and disproportionate use
of force.”
Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, toned down his usual tough talk Tuesday, acknowledging on Twitter that certain images of the evacuation were “shocking” and saying that the Paris police chief had handed him a report documenting “several unacceptable events,” without giving further details on those events.
Darmanin said he had asked an internal police watchdog body to investigate over the next 48 hours and he vowed to make the results of that inquiry public.