You may have seen them in the streets of Bordeaux, on the evening of Thursday January 20. About 450 volunteers and 165 agents of the town hall, the metropolis and the communal center for social action (CCAS), all decked out in an orange vest, surveyed the city to identify all the people sleeping in the street or in camps, on the occasion of the Solidarity Night organized in several major French cities. The day after the first Bordeaux edition, the municipality affirms that 561 people were counted by volunteers.
“These people are in addition to the 287 men, women and children currently sheltered in squats, whose census was carried out by the municipal and metropolitan services in parallel with the Night of Solidarity”, explains the city of Bordeaux. in a press release. “There are thus at least 858 people who require urgent shelter in Bordeaux. Emergency accommodation is a fundamental and unconditional right.” The town hall also recalls that it has allowed accommodation for 43 families, i.e. a hundred people, within the municipal heritage and in dedicated structures.
An action without “credibility”
An observation that did not at all please the prefect of Gironde Fabienne Buccio, often singled out by associations during squat evacuations, or more recently for not having triggered a very cold plan despite the negative temperatures. “The reality of the calls to 115 last night strongly belies this figure,” she says. “No call was recorded for a request for emergency accommodation while places were available.”
The prefecture asserts that this figure covers “very different” realities, between people on the street and more permanent squats. “The combination of situations takes away all credibility from this action. The number of people in an emergency situation on the street is not known. Yet that was the interest of the operation”, concludes Fabienne Buccio.