(5 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris - 5 August 2025
1. Utopia 56 members and migrants arriving at Paris City Hall
2. Various of migrants outside Paris City Hall
3. French police arriving
4. Various of migrants protesting
5. SOUNDBITE (French) Rose (no surname given) migrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo:
“We are women who were raped back home, tortured, hurt. We came here to escape. You are the ones who could protect us, but we are left abandoned. We sleep in metro stations, on the streets, in churches. We haven’t eaten, and others are sick with babies."
6. Police surrounding migrants
7. Various of migrants
8. Set up of Nathan Lepreux, Utopia 56 coordinator
9. SOUNDBITE (French) Nathan Lepreux, Utopia 56 coordinator:
“Behind me are 210 people. 90 of them are children, about 30 under the age of three, so really just babies and about 40 single women as well. If we sadly had to rank vulnerability, these are among the most at risk on the streets. As you can see here, it’s really single women, babies, pregnant women… all these people the state is abandoning and refusing to take responsibility for."
10. Police and migrants
11. Migrants protesting
12. SOUNDBITE (French) Divine (no surname given), migrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo:
“In my country, there is war, and when you put me outside, where am I supposed to go? I’m homeless — I’m a 25-year-old woman. I don’t want to turn to prostitution. I really want housing, and I want France to do something for these children and for the young people.”
13. Police checking blankets
14. Utopia 56b members carrying blankets
15. Various of migrants setting up for sleeping
STORYLINE:
The humanitarian group Utopia 56 staged a protest Tuesday night outside Paris City Hall with about 200 migrants, including families, to demand emergency shelter and denounce public policies they describe as “increasingly aggressive” toward homeless people.
Among them was Rose, a migrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo who has been in France for three years. “We were raped and tortured back home. We came here to escape, but now we are abandoned,” she said. “We sleep in metro stations, on the streets, in churches. We haven’t eaten, and some of us are sick.”
Utopia 56 says 350,000 people are currently homeless in France, up from 190,000 in 2017. The group points to the removal of 6,500 emergency shelter beds in the 2025 budget and notes that 25,000 evictions took place last year. It claims that France’s emergency hotline, 115, answers only 12% of calls in Paris, with no guarantee of housing even when calls are answered.
Nathan Lepreux, Utopia 56 coordinator, said the gathering included 210 people 90 children, about 30 of them under age three and around 40 single women. “These are the most vulnerable on the streets: single women, babies, pregnant women… all of them left outside by the state,” he said.
The volunteer-run group, which receives no public funding, als... [truncated]
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Video at Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypq51Elv-8I