a collective alerts to the fate of homeless people by making statues talk

“They don’t seem to listen much to the living, so we made the dead talk.” Activists redecorated around ten statues in Paris on Sunday March 24 to warn of the fate of people on the streets before the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Facing the Senate, these activists from Reverse of the Medal, a collective which brings together some 80 associations and NGOs, symbolically launched “a first test” of the Olympic Games, by throwing buoys representing the Olympic rings into the pool of the Luxembourg Gardens. Launched with colored smoke bombs, they carried, they explained, the “Olympic ills” (expulsions, harassment, etc.).

The activists had previously “makes people talk” several statues in the capital with messages such as “social cleansing as a legacy”, explained Paul Alauzy, spokesperson for Reverse of the Medal. Four months before the Olympics (July 26-August 11), in Paris, “3 500 people are sleeping on the streets and a thousand in gymnasiums, and this summer there will be new arrivals.”he pointed. “We must take care of them so that the party is dignified and beautiful for everyone”underlines the collective which is calling for the creation of 7,000 additional places in the Paris region.