The Game Lyrique Theater has been a gem in the Paris dazzling cultural scene since the 19th century. Once he hosted operate Jacques Offenbach and the Ballets Russes performances.
This season, however, his drama, which is mostly spoken, created more than 300 homeless immigrants who camping in place, sleeping on the floors at night and demanding that the French government provide them with real housing and other advantages because, they, they, say, are, they are under the age of 18. This is a key bureaucratic obstacle in France: if they are legally recognized as minors unaccompanied, they become acceptable to housing and other government assistance.
Youth collective Belleville Park, a Paris group that includes immigrants and left -wing activists who are not immigrants, organize an occupation. Since 2023, they have set up similar occupations in other, less known places. Organizers say their actions have pressured the city officials to find 800 seats for young people.
But the city government says there is no room for shelter. And it made a preliminary decision that many migrants are not an age they say they are. This left many of them in a recess while chasing their appeals in court.
As signatories to the United Nations Convention on Child Rights, European countries must provide special protection, including housing, immigrants of immigrants. And the question of lying to o-or inability to prove -born has become a flash because feelings against immigrants help in encouraging Rise of extreme right parties through the continent.
“This is a big question in Europe,” said Ulrike Bialas, a sociologist who studied young immigrants in Germany, and is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the study of religious and ethnic diversity in Göttingen in Germany.
In Britain in November, Rupert Lowe, a member of Parliament and the Nigel Farage’s antimigure Reform party, invited The British government rethinks the age of “illegal migrants claiming to be 16/17”. In Germany, the legislators for the extremely right alternative to the German party in the state of Baden-Württemberg illustrated their concern through the Internet through a photo of a bearded man dressed as a newborn baby.
Not only distant right numbers believe that rules are abused. Last year, Senator Valérie Boyer, a member of the Republicans, a French political party that is conservative but not the ultimate ,,,,,, said that Young immigrants gave benefits by the Government were “too often false minors, who are in reality economic migrants.”
In the past decade, Dr. Bialas, a sociologist, said: “A huge number of” young migrants unaccompanied, came to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. “Many of them – in fact, in Germany, more than half – have no documents with them to prove their identity, and especially their birth date,” she said.
In France, experts say, unaccompanied by young immigrants who cannot prove that minors often end up on the street.
Mohamed Bah, who is one of the many immigrants who occupied Gaîté Lyrique, is precisely in that trouble. In a recent interview, he said he was sleeping under the bridge before joining others in the occupation of the theater. So far, he said, he could not convince the French authorities he was 15 years old. “They asked me for documents,” he said. “I told them I only had pictures.”
Looking at the young man, who traveled to France from Senegal in October, it was practically impossible to say how old he could.
Like many, his preliminary application for fees was rejected, and he waited for the courts to resolve his appeal – a procedure that could take months.
The preliminary estimate in Paris is carried out by a non -profit group, the French country of Asylum, which extensively interviewed the applicants, said Vincent Beaugrand, the director of the group. Mr. Beaugrand said the process is not accurate science. Often migrants do not carry official documents or say they have no records of their age. City officials say that at this stage immigrants do not manage official recognition as minors about 70 percent of the time.
In France, immigrants like Mohamed were called “ni-ni-ni” because they “are”neither minurs, nor majeurs” – Neither smaller nor adult. According to French Ministry of Justice5,990 immigrants unaccompanied were confirmed as minors in 2014. That number increased to 19,370 in 2023.
Temporary data for last year suggests that this number has fallen significantly, probably because the European Union has recently begun to pay North African countries To prevent it Subsahar Africans from moving to Europe.
More, poll Last year, a group of advocacy for French homeless people found that at least 3,477 young immigrants were not permanent homes and waiting for the authorities to make an official decision on their age. More than 1,000 of them lived on the street, the group said.
This month Marine Hamelet, MP with a French nationalist, an antimigrant National rally partyPosted Video Internet saying that methods for “detection of cheaters” should have enhanced at age.
“The protection of children is a key duty of humanity,” she said. “But the policy of greeting a minor unaccompanied should not be abused to the point of becoming a immigration channel.”
Mrs. Hamelet, who did not respond to the interview requests, said in the video that every minor was taken unaccompanied under the Government’s Wing Costs of French Taxpayers around EUR 50,000, approximately $ 52,000 a year, the figure that has which it has was challenged.
Others claim that France should treat all young immigrants as if they were minors, and give them appropriate benefits as they wait for their appeals to pass – especially given how likely they will succeed. UNICEF says that 50 percent of up to 80 percent of immigrant youth, who are referred to a judge in France, are eventually considered to be minors.
Corentin Bailleul, head of the UNICEF advocacy department in France, said leaving the children in Udubina while complaining about his cases was out of steps with the principles of the UN Convention. “We urge France to review his legislation to basically be in accordance with the assumption of minority status,” he said.
The interest of Gaîté Lyrique, which began on December 10, forced the cancellation or relocation of the program at the theater, a handsome Italian building about a mile from Louvre, which has been a cultural center that has been a city since 2002. For weeks, his halls were full of immigrants, mostly from former African colonies in France, including Guinea, the ivory coast, Mali and Senegal. In the morning they are aligned with a donated breakfast. By day, they move on their phones surrounded by blankets and little things. In the evening, they attend organizing meetings.
The published inscription that spread over the facade says: “There is no minor unaccompanied on the street!” Google Maps states that the place is temporarily closed.
“As long as there are no shelters for minors,” Mr. Bah said, “the place will be busy.”
City Hall and National Government are arguing about who is responsible for migrants. The city government has the theater, with a program in recent years that includes workshops, indie rock show, art installations and other events that often reflect the left policy of Paris.
Léa Filoche, Deputy Mayor in Paris, who is dealing with housing problems, said in an interview that the City no longer had a shelter to offer. The National Government of the Right Center, she said, should find accommodation for immigrants.
Officials of the Paris area prefecture, the Hand of the National Government, refused to be interviewed. But the statement said the occupation “migrants who adults recognized as adults by the social services of the City of Paris.”
Immigrants found that the Management Board of theater is allies, not opponents. This is a position that brought in one conservative radio commentator accuse Managing suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome”.
In the interview, Juliette Donadieu, the general director, said she was worried that the place could be financially established if the decision does not arrive soon. But Mrs. Donadieu said the matter was one of the basic human decency.
“Who could throw these people out on the street in the middle of winter today?” she said.
