To go Porte de la Chapelle, you may take the streetcar. You're immediately struck by a terrible scent : you try to recover and identify the smell without delay, it is turpentine and you wonder whether the streetcar is full of painters wearing their stuff with them...Then the tram approaches the station and you begin to look around, puzzled : on the sidewalks appear tents, plastic covers stretched here and there under which men lie on cartons or hangings, others wander confused or hesitant, seeming aimless. Little by little you become conscious that there are hundreds of them seated or lying on open areas, along by-pass roads; some drowse, others talk. Then you get closer and it is easy to talk : these men, most of them, -women are very few- come from Afghanistan,Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia. You won't wait long before understanding that the awful scent of turpentine that made you sick in the streetcar has an explanation : it has been generously poured on blankets, quilts, and maybe clothes to struggle aganist pests! Each one tells his own story : K. fled Afghanistan, he fled across Pakistan, Iran, Turquey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany where he lived almost two years before seeing his request of asylum be rejected. The country list makes you dizzy...when you realize that the journey never comes to an end and that now, supporting an unbearable heat , he receives you on cartons spread on the macadam... You walk along the fences that close the center for refugiees when one of them adresses you in german : it is very dirty there, he says in an outraged tone...and it is easy to check! A lot of indistinct objects lie on the pavement : plastic bottles, cardboard or plastic packagings, papers, various wreckage stuck on bitumen add to the feeling of desolation. How can one reject human beings in such an inhuman fate? Yet , there are structures, organisations, volunteers, agreements between the City Hall and humanitarians, there are men and women who try to make these men and women,who arrived here by accident, feel better, and endeavour to improve the reception of those who flee wars, famines, tribal or religious conflicts. Either for the Center that Emmaüs Soldarité takes in charge or for Utopia56, a humanitarian NGO that helps those who weren't lucky enough to be accommodated inside the center, there is no choice but to feel bitter : the help can't cope with the number of waiting refugiees. Sometimes, when it's very hot, even the distribution of water causes pushing : there are so scarce water supplies for those condemned to live in the streets! Even Jean Valjean, the convict depicted by Victor Hugo, could drink in public fountains
Text Alix Giraud
Text Alix Giraud
