Ukrainians ordered to leave their homes, the method shocks

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“We will only make one proposal (editor’s note) for rehousing. If you refuse, we close your door. It's outside. With the children, it’s outside.” The message was intended to be clear. It was. It was even brutal and forced the Ukrainians (a large majority of women with children) staying at Pen Bron in La Turballe to leave their accommodation. Friday December 13, 2024, in the old hotel where around fifty refugees have been hosted since 2022, the France Horizon association, mandated by the State, announced to them that they had to leave their emergency accommodation. Either they accept the proposed rehousing, or they refuse (some have until Tuesday, December 17, 2024 to decide) and they will be evicted. Since then, Ukrainians have been mobilizing.

25 km from Nantes

Natalia is one of those who refuses France Horizon's proposal. The association found him accommodation in Divatte-sur-Loire, 25 km from Nantes. His two children, aged 11 and 15, go to school in Guérande.

For this 43-year-old woman, a beautician in Ukraine, leaving Pen Bron means isolating herself, disrupting her children's schooling and perhaps, in 3 or 6 months, having to integrate again into another city. .

“It’s violent”

Natalia does not speak French. She arrived in Pen Bron in March 2024, fleeing Ukraine at war “so that my children live in a country at peace,” she confides to the Echo de la Presqu’île.

Her residence permit runs until March 2025. Like her compatriots, she understood that Pen Bron was temporary, but “we thought we would stay on the peninsula”.

The Friday morning meeting “terrorized us. It’s violent.”

Neither the Works of Pen Bron nor Vinci

Why this rush to empty the old Pen Bron hotel? The mayor of La Turballe Didier Cadro and the prefecture (France Horizon has not yet responded to our request) assure that the Ukrainians were warned “several weeks ago”.

Natalia speaks of “15 days”, at most, “and not very clearly about the dates”.

This is neither a request from the Œuvres de Pen-Bron association nor a request from Vinci Immobilier.

The state behind the decision

It seems that it is indeed the State which is at the origin of this decision. When questioned, the prefecture recalls that “the Pen Bron site has been used as an emergency collective airlock for the reception of Ukrainian households since April 2022. It was made available by the Œuvres de Pen Bron association to France Horizon for a temporary period. This site, which has a capacity of 100 places, requires too much work to consider continuing the action. The 69 displaced Ukrainians (there are now around fifty, Editor's note) still present were informed of the closure of the site several weeks ago. 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 in Loire-Atlantique, only one proposal will be made to each household.

A collective, a letter, a mobilization

But for those concerned, who remain shocked by the method, “the suitable solution” is not.

“They had no notice period. It’s not human,” protests Jean, a resident of the Guérande peninsula, who is mobilizing alongside the Ukrainians.

A collective was hastily created on Sunday December 15, 2024, a petition is a course of signatures and a letter was sent to the prefect.

“Why not accommodate them at the Turballe campsite during the winter break? », suggests Jean.

The Droujba association of Saint-Nazaire has been contacted and must decide this Tuesday, December 17, 2024 what steps it can possibly take.

It was on this same Tuesday the 17th that the ultimatum was given to Natalia and her two children.

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