“We are told to call 115 or return to Ukraine”

Around twenty Ukrainian nationals will have to leave the AFPA home in Alençon (Orne) where they live. The prefecture assures that “these people will be taken care of from 2025”. The Human Rights League is outraged: “No rehousing solution has been offered to them.”

His big eyes betray concern. For two years, Anna had already been living with the pain of exile. Today, she fears finding herself on the street, in this country where she thought she had found refuge. In hesitant French, she explains: “We were told to find a solution with friends or return to Ukraine.”

Since she left her bag in Alençon during the summer of 2022, Anna has benefited from the European temporary protection granted to Ukrainians. The Coallia association which supports refugees found him a room at the AFPA temporary shelter where around twenty Ukrainians reside, most of them single people.

“We ask them to leave the premises very quickly without explanation, without offer of rehousing”worries Jean-Jacques Oesinger, the co-president of the Human Rights League of Orne. “The premises are rented by Coallia on behalf of the State. They have not explained anything to the Ukrainians. There is no letter, no writing. We find the process unworthy.”

AFPA, the owner of the accommodation, did not respond to our request, nor did the Coallia association. The Orne prefecture stands by a press release published a few days ago in which it recalls that “more than 550 people from Ukraine have been welcomed since 2022 and the vast majority of them have remained in Orne”.

The prefecture specifies that “36 Ukrainians are still housed in collective homes, at the AFPA in Alençon and at the former clinic in Flers”, but today, “AFPA must recover its capabilities to meet its missions” and the old Flers clinic must be “rehabilitated”.

For perhaps the first time since she arrived in France, Anna is afraid. The rumor suggests a deadline set for December 15, but nothing has been officially confirmed. “We don’t know where to go. We were told to do 115,” the social emergency reception number.

In his press release, the Orne prefecture ensures that “mobilization is strong (…) for the reception and integration of people displaced from Ukraine”. She adds, however, that “these people have at the same time the duty to engage in social and professional integration processes.”

In Ukraine, she was a bank manager in Dnipro. His French, still in its infancy, did not allow him to find work here. She lives on the allowance paid to asylum seekers, the amount of which is stopped at “426 euros per month for a single person to 732 euros per month for a couple with two children, as long as they have no other resources”further specifies the prefecture.

Every Wednesday, Oleg goes to the Red Cross to collect a food parcel. This 37-year-old IT technician left kyiv last May with the hope of starting a new life. When he arrived in Alençon, he started by taking French lessons.

A few days ago, he was also asked to leave the AFPA home. “I was also told to find accommodation with friends or to return to Ukraine. But I don’t want to go back there,” he said worriedly. Oleg fears army recruiters “aggressive” who would not take into account his health problems. “And in Ukraine, all the cities are bombed. There are many apartments destroyed, every day, every night…”