solidarity is organized around Ukrainians ordered to leave Pen Bron

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The method, used by the France Horizon association tasked by the State with supporting Ukrainians welcomed in France to flee the war, is not working.

“If you refuse, we close your door”

As a reminder, Friday December 13, 2024, the association summons the Ukrainians accommodated in the former Pen Bron hotel in La Turballe.

Purpose of the meeting: the imminent departure and proposals for new accommodation in the Loire-Atlantique department.

The tone is dry, the words sharp. Selected pieces:

We will only make one proposal (editor’s note: rehousing). If you refuse, we close your door. It’s outside. With the children, it’s outside.

The sixty Ukrainians must leave between January and February 2025. But it was in mid-December 2024 that they were ordered to sign the rehousing proposal. Otherwise, “we close your door”.

France Horizon did not respond to requests from L’Écho de la peninsula.

Too much work

The association of Œuvres de Pen Bron, owner of the site, and the future buyer Vinci Immobilier, assure the Echo of the peninsula that they have not asked to empty the premises. The decision seems to come from the State and therefore from the Loire-Atlantique prefecture.

This one, interviewed by the Echo of the peninsula, recalls the context:

The Pen Bron site has been used as an emergency collective airlock to accommodate Ukrainian households since April 2022. This site was initially scheduled to remain open for one calendar year. It has been extended until 2024, but it requires too much work to consider continuing the action.

“A suitable solution”

The Loire-Atlantique prefecture assures that “the 69 displaced Ukrainians still present have been informed of the closure for several weeks. Since April, 7 collective meetings have taken place, recalling the closure at the end of the year. Each household will be offered a solution adapted to its situation, likely to be located throughout the department. Given the tension over access to accommodation and housing, only one proposal will be made. No family is left on the street. Elderly people, single women with children or people with health problems will be given priority to a collective site currently being identified.”

Children in school, jobs

But for those concerned, “the suitable solution” is not. Some are on permanent contracts, others intend to return to their seasonal jobs on the Guérande peninsula. Children go to school in La Turballe, in Guérande. Links have been forged with residents and associations. Leaving means once again uprooting yourself, isolating yourself, disrupting your children’s schooling, slowing down integration.

So, Ukrainians are mobilizing despite the anxiety that grips them and the fear of being expelled. A surge of solidarity is building to support them.

A collective has been created, a petition is a course of signatures and a letter has been sent to the prefect, another will be sent to the Minister of the Interior.

In these letters, the collective asks for “the continuation of schooling for children on the peninsula, a solution for the elderly, sick and disabled, a roof over their heads for employees on the peninsula, respect for the winter break and the opening of the Chardons Bleus campsite in La Turballe. He will contact the prefecture for an appointment.

The Droujba association of Saint-Nazaire is also at their side. This Friday, December 20, 2024, she will receive each person to study the situation and try to find solutions. She will also request a meeting with Nicolas Criaud, president of CapAtlantique and the mayor of La Turballe Didier Cadro.

Outraged associations

The content and especially the form were shocking. The reactions were not long in coming. The Franco-Ukrainian association of Nantes, Volya, speaks of “unworthy treatment. These forced displacements, accompanied by explicit threats and a glaring lack of humanity, are unacceptable and must stop immediately.” She sees it as “institutional violence against individuals already weakened by war and exile. Their only aspiration is to live in peace and to fully integrate into our society. Moving them suddenly, without consideration for their emotional and social stability, seriously disrupts their integration process.”

The association is calling on the Loire-Atlantique prefecture to “guarantee strict compliance with the winter break and immediately suspend all evictions, offer dignified rehousing solutions, adapted to the needs of families, ensure that the associations mandated for support refugees and displaced persons from Ukraine comply with practices marked by respect and ethics.”

The Saint-Nazaire collective “United Against Disposable Immigration” (UCIJ) recalls that people coming from Ukraine “benefit from the status of” temporary protection. The Council of the European Union has extended this status until March 2026. He is surprised at the formal notices to leave their accommodation without examining a solution that respects their situations. These decisions are incomprehensible.”

Place Publique “denounces the brutality of France Horizon’s decision and calls for these refugees to remain on the site until the end of the school year and for rehousing solutions adapted to family and professional situations to be anticipated”.

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