“If this is the only obstacle to transforming these places into emergency accommodation, I volunteer to go and get the keys myself from Valérie Pécresse,” Fatoumata exclaimed Thursday at the Paris Council. Kone. For the president of the Les Ecologistes group, it is unthinkable that families of school children would find themselves on the street, even though disused high schools, Georges-Brassens in the 19th century and Brassaï in the 15th century, are available.
The elected official therefore asks the district mayors to act. A wish adopted Thursday by the Council of Paris, but Fatoumata Koné reaffirmed her mobilization “until high schools are open to accommodate street children”.
Since the start of the school year, 558 families have been sleeping outside in Paris. In 2023, more than 400 school children were recorded as homeless. Faced with the unprecedented increase in the number of homeless school students and the action of associations, the president (Libres!) of Île-de-France, Valérie Pécresse, had given her agreement to the regional prefect, he a year ago, for the temporary requisition and transformation of five Parisian high schools into accommodation centers for families, including the Georges-Brassens high school.
Last October, François Dagnaud insisted on the fact that a Franco-Berber center was about to be set up in the disused high school building. Temporary accommodation would therefore have been possible, but “six months” before.
A center to accommodate 50 families in the 19th century
Thursday, Fatoumata Koné, present at a demonstration in October to demand the opening of this high school as an accommodation center, reiterated her request to the Paris Council. By also requesting the opening of the Brassaï high school for the same purpose.
“This is a question of humanity and I want to believe that our majority and the opposition can come together on the need to protect families and children. And don’t tell me you don’t have the keys to these establishments,” she said, irritated, to her peers.
Somewhat annoyed, François Dagnaud, mayor of the 19th century, initially retorted that he was “not intended to collect the keys to these establishments”. But, faced with the urgency of accommodating families with street school children in his district, as elsewhere in Paris, François Dagnaud assures: “We could not make the inevitable extension of our reception systems dependent on the calendars of the Île-de-France region, which took a long time to initiate the administrative procedures for the decommissioning of this Georges-Brassens high school. »
Although he was not intended to hold the keys to these establishments, the 19th century mayor specified that he had nevertheless already acted in favor of families with children in school, by opening the doors of an accommodation center in his borough.
“Two weeks ago I proposed the provision of municipal premises over which I have control, the former center of taste located in the heart of the district, and I have the pleasure of informing you “that this center has been welcoming since Monday evening families of children attending school in the 19th century and elsewhere in Paris, who are thus sheltered”, welcomed the mayor of the 19th century. This center had already been used in the same way last winter and can accommodate up to 50 families, even though the snow appeared on Thursday in the capital.
