justice orders the prefecture to find emergency accommodation for a migrant and her two children

She slept on the street with her two children aged 6 years and 15 months. The summary judge of the Bordeaux administrative court ruled in favor of Amnesty International.

Justice ordered Monday, December 18, the Dordogne prefecture to find emergency accommodation for a migrant woman on the street with her two children, France Bleu Périgord learned. The summary judge of the Bordeaux administrative court ruled in favor of Amnesty International. The Dordogne prefecture was ordered to find emergency accommodation for this family within 24 hours. Amnesty International welcomes “a great victory in court”.

According to the NGO’s branch in Périgord, this mother from the Democratic Republic of Congo had been without housing since November 27. She slept on the street with her two children aged 6 years and 15 months, the youngest suffering from a rare and hereditary disease requiring follow-up in hospital. “It’s -3, -4°C at the moment, we can’t leave a 15-month-old child in the street, it’s not humanly possible, it’s barbaric!”protests Lionel Pascal, legal manager of Amnesty International in Périgueux, on France Bleu Périgord.

Migrants also have rights, they are human beings like you and me, they must be treated like human beings.

Lionel Pascal, from Amnesty

on France Bleu Périgord

Amnesty therefore took legal action. “I don’t understand that in a democratic country, a state like France, a civil servant at this level does not react to try to protect children, that seems to me to be the minimum, so it is logical that it is sanctioned by the courts”believes Lionel Pascal.

“The prefecture never responds”

According to Me Samy Djemaoun, Amnesty International lawyer, “Prefecture [de Dordogne] did not give any reason for its refusal, including during the hearing. Lionel Pascal also criticizes the prefecture for never responding when the NGO contacts it. “The prefecture is our privileged interlocutor,” he explains, “and we write to them regularly. We always have total silence, the prefecture never responds, whatever the situation.”

In a press release consulted by France Bleu Périgord, the Dordogne prefecture said “take note of the decision of the summary judge, and that emergency accommodation was offered to them today via 115”. She also recalls that “Mrs. L. had seen her asylum application rejected in 2022, and that she had been accommodated in an accommodation center until November 27. The structure had ended the accommodation after numerous breaches of the internal regulations and several warnings for acts of aggression towards other families residing in the emergency accommodation structure.”