We are about twenty people who have been living in Malva since May 2022, a squatted building on Île Saint-Denis, at 62 avenue Jean Jaurès. The Malvassé has been under eviction threat since December 15, 2023 following a procedure that does not grant us any delay and abolishes the winter truce. (December 18, 2023 – the winter truce would be granted, “the owner having withdrawn his request to cancel the truce”).
Our place of residence is currently squatted, among others, by vulnerable people, families with children attending school in the same commune and in Saint-Denis. The neighbouring lots are also squatted by about sixty other very precarious people, including a dozen families with children, who also attend school on the Ile-Saint-Denis.
Le Malvassé, in addition to being a place of residence, is also a place of organization, solidarity and encounter. Since we have been squatting the building, we have set up regular and free food distributions in the neighborhood and legal and administrative assistances. We have also temporarily welcomed people fleeing war, LGBTQ+ people on migration and families with children, to compensate for the saturation of institutional emergency accommodation arrangements. This place of housing, mutual aid and solidarity, is a space that allows many people suffering the full force of the economic, social and political crisis, not to give in to despair in the face of administrative setbacks, the shortage of housing and work.
After several attempts at illegal evictions and a danger order issued by the town hall at the beginning of November, the court today confirms this political relentlessness with an eviction decision that was announced more than a week ago in the municipal newspaper. This eviction without delay and without winter truce in the middle of December is one example among many others of the consequences of the “cleaning” of the “neighborhoods” of the Olympic Village that is rampant in Ile-de-France. It is also in line with the gentrification policies that the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods have been subjected to for many years. The city of Ile-Saint-Denis is no exception to this rule.
Instead of a building squatted by precarious and vulnerable people, excluded from accommodation structures and the common law system, the owner wants “the creation of business premises for artists, liberal professions, craftsmen or small businesses”. Similarly, for security reasons and with the idea of extending an “eco-district” destined to become a showcase for world tourism during the Olympics, the towers of the “Marcel Paul” district will be emptied of their inhabitants, with no guarantee of social housing adapted to their needs.
These processes of urban segregation and the repressive legal arsenal provided by the Kasbarian law, accelerate the exclusion and criminalization of poorly housed, precarious tenants or squatters.
We alert the authorities concerned to the irresponsibility of an eviction in the middle of winter. This brutal homelessness would constitute an imminent danger to the safety, health and integrity of the inhabitants.
We demand from the Commune of the Île Saint-Denis, the Prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis, and the owner of the buildings:
– the maintenance of the inhabitants of Malvassé and neighbouring families in their places of residence for the duration of the winter truce.
– suitable alternative housing solutions for all residents, especially those in extremely vulnerable and precarious situations.
The inhabitants of Malvassé (December 2023)
62 avenue Jean Jaurès,
93450 l’île Saint-Denis, France
https://squ.at/r/a5nl
Refugees related groups in France https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/FR/topic/sans-papiers
Some squats in and around Paris: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/city/paris/country/FR/squated/squat
Some squats in France: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/FR/squated/squat
Groups (collectives, social centres, squats) in France: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/FR
Events in France: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/FR
