For France to play its part in welcoming Ukrainians who are trying to take shelter from the fighting, initiatives are beginning to appear. The mayor of Lille Martine Aubry said on Saturday February 26 that she had already identified with the prefecture 250 places available for these refugees and will launch an appeal to Lille residents. That of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, announced Sunday evening in a press release that she was setting up “a crisis cell in order to put all the means in place to ensure the accommodation of Ukrainians stranded in Paris or who would come to take refuge there”.
The association of mayors of France calls for solidarity and several elected officials are already responding to the call. “We will find solutions, says Jean-Philippe Gautrais, Left Front mayor of Fontenay-sous-Bois. His town of Val-de-Marne is twinned with Brovary, near Kiev. We open the door to these men and women fleeing war. In Brovary, the first bombardments killed seven civilians. People fleeing these atrocities must be welcomed.”
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“The association of mayors of France gave us a list of foodstuffs that Ukrainians might need”abounds Benoît Payan, the mayor of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), a city twinned for fifty years with the Ukrainian city of Odessa.
“We are mobilizing and coordinating. We ourselves are in a position to welcome war refugees. The people of Marseille are ready to help.”
Benoît Payan, Mayor of Marseilleat franceinfo
For this, he plans to organize a collection on Monday at the town hall. “I asked the Marseille hospitals to mobilize, they are. I asked the firefighters to provide stocks of survival blankets, tents, basic necessities and civil security products so that we can send them as soon as necessary.”
Lyon, Nancy, Saint-Etienne… The mayors of several large cities also say they are ready to welcome Ukrainian refugees. The environmental mayor of Besançon Anne Vignot responds present, as already last summer with Afghan refugees: “We received about fifty Afghans. Some stayed, others left.”
“We have an essential role: the essential solidarity and the moral obligation to welcome war refugees.”
Anne Vignot, mayor of Besançonat franceinfo
Benoît Payan also believes that solidarity is natural for the city of Marseille: “It’s a city that has had to accommodate thousands of women and men throughout its history, because of war, environmental upheavals or regime changes. That’s how this city was built. town.”
Dominique, 67, lives in Fréjus in the Var. She contacted the Union of Ukrainians in France to offer an apartment until July. “I tell myself that we can’t stay idly by. I have a vacant apartment, I don’t see why I wouldn’t make it available. It’s a three-room apartment with two bedrooms and bunk beds, which can accommodate four or five people. There are a lot of people who have second homes here, I would like to encourage them to do the same.” Like Dominique, a hundred people contacted the Union of Ukrainians in France to welcome refugees.
What reception in France for Ukrainian refugees? Report by Olivia Chandioux
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