Migrant transfers from Paris ahead of Olympics anger local mayors

Mayors in rural and small-town France are increasingly angry over the transfer of migrants from the capital to their communities, which they believe is linked to clean-up efforts ahead of the Paris Olympics.

Serge Grouard, the right-wing mayor of Orleans in central France, complained Monday about the arrival of up to 500 homeless migrants in his town of 100,000 people without his prior knowledge.

"It has been proved that every three weeks, a coach arrives in Orleans from Paris, with between 35-50 people on board," he told reporters, adding that there were rumours it was to "clean the deck" in the capital ahead of the Olympics in July and August.

Each new arrival is offered three weeks in a hotel at the state's expense, but is thereafter left to fend for themselves, Grouard explained.

Paris has long been a magnet for asylum seekers and migrants, mostly from Africa, South Asia or the Middle East, with demand for short-term emergency accommodation far exceeding supply.

As a result, informal camps under bridges or on unoccupied land spring up regularly around the capital, which are periodically torn down by police.

Occupants are offered the chance to apply for asylum and the government's policy is to move many of them out of Paris and into facilities elsewhere in the country.

The arrivals in Orleans were "not linked to the organisation of the Paris Olympics", the state's regional security office said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that Orleans was one of 10 "temporary regional reception centres".

"We haven't been consulted, either about the creation or about the people who will go there," the deputy mayor of Strasbourg, Floriane Varieras, told AFP when asked about a regional facility near her city in eastern France.

"That's where I agree with the mayor of Orleans, the rather opaque side of what is happening," she added.

In January, the major of Lavaur, a small town near Toulouse in southwest France, issued a public letter in which he denounced  the policy of transferring migrants around the country as "irresponsible" and "dangerous".

Bernard Carayon, a rightwinger from the Republicans party, wrote that the policy was designed "to make Paris in all likelihood more 'presentable' and more controllable, six months before the Olympic Games." He added: "It's unacceptable."

French President Emmanuel Macron backed the idea of dispersing asylum seekers and refugees around the country during a speech in September 2022.