“This is good news since the first Ukrainians we welcomed to Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie arrived on March 5th”, rejoices Wednesday, October 5 on franceinfo François Blanchet, mayor of the municipality of Vendée and president of the association “Les Joyeux Petits Souliers” which organized the arrival of several Ukrainian families in France. He reacts to the announcement made by Elisabeth Borne on Monday to financially help French families who host Ukrainian refugees. Olivier Klein, Minister Delegate for Cities and Housing, specified on Wednesday October 5 the amount of this aid of 150 euros per month from the end of November for households which have received or are still receiving refugees from Ukraine for at least least 90 days.
franceinfo: How did you react to the announcement of this aid, which will therefore concern between 5,000 and 12,000 French families?
Francois Blanchet : This is good news since the first Ukrainians we welcomed to Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie arrived on March 5th. There was a real surge of solidarity but for the people it was also a real investment. A small regret, however, that the aid covers the period from April 1 to December 31, 2022 and that it does not start on March 1. We have many refugees who arrived at the start of the war and who left in May or June, at the end of school. I am therefore not certain that all the families who have taken in these people have correctly counted the 90 days necessary to be entitled to assistance.
Does this solidarity have a cost for the families who have welcomed Ukrainian refugees?
Yes it has a cost, because hosting two or three people at home when there are already three, four or five is not necessarily easy but many people have not asked themselves the question. The people who left the Ukraine it was the suitcase or the coffin. People have therefore opened their homes, their hearts, businesses too. There was a real outpouring of solidarity. I don’t think people thought about finances when they welcomed the Ukrainians. However, when they arrived, we didn’t know if it was going to last eight days, a month or three months… And for many people, it still lasts. We have people who arrived in March and who are still housed there with families today. Inevitably, over time, the financial question ends up being asked when it was not necessarily a priority question at the beginning.
Do you think that the question of finances could have discouraged certain French families from opening their doors?
These questions did not discourage the good wills at the beginning but it happened later. That is to say that we had to relocate Ukrainian families because for some French families, after a month, a month and a half, it had become financially complicated. We, with the association, have made up for that. We took care of shopping, school registrations, etc. We had to make adjustments. So I think that for all the people who are still hosting, this help will be welcome.
Apart from the financial aspect, are there other difficulties?
It’s true that it’s not friends that we welcome for a week or a month, when it lasts three or six months, inevitably it’s long and inevitably there are worries, problems of cohabitation that occur. But beyond that, the host families remember a great human adventure. In the municipality, we have about ten Ukrainian families left and throughout the territory we had welcomed 500 Ukrainians with the association, about 300 have left and 200 are therefore still on the national territory.