On a graffiti-stained sidewalk in Paris, an odd sight appeared days earlier than the Olympic opening ceremony in July: Round 40 big cement Lego-like blocks in neat rows beneath the Pont de Stains, a bridge within the northern suburb of Aubervilliers that connects two Olympic websites, the Stade de France and the Parc des Nations.
This place was a homeless encampment, the place round 100 individuals, a lot of them migrants, lived in tents. Then on July 17, the police arrived and instructed everyone to leave, as a part of a cleanup operation during which authorities put homeless individuals, members of the Roma group, migrants, and intercourse staff on buses to different cities, akin to Bordeaux or Toulouse.
As soon as the authorities emptied the realm, in keeping with activists, the immovable blocks of concrete had been put in instead of the tents, ending any notion the previous residents could sooner or later be capable to return.
Campaigners say these bricks are an instance of hostile structure, a time period used to explain a few of the most seen adjustments cities and firms make to discourage homeless individuals loitering or sleeping on their properties. “This isn’t new, but it surely has been intensified in a really particular method in the course of the Olympics,” says Antoine de Clerck, a part of Le Revers de la Médaille, a bunch of activists elevating consciousness of how marginalized persons are handled in the course of the Olympic Video games.
“We don’t advocate for encampments and squats and shantytowns,” provides de Clerck. “However to eradicate them, you must discover various long-term options.”
Regardless of different examples of hostile structure in Paris, together with picnic tables put in the place individuals used to sleep, it’s the big Lego-style blocks which have proved most controversial. “I haven’t seen something fairly like this,” says Jules Boykoff, a professor and former skilled soccer participant who research the influence of the Olympics on marginalized communities. “Usually, hostile structure is extra refined,” he says, “like a curved bus bench that makes it much less snug for anyone to sleep.”
Anti-homeless spikes and tough surfaces put in in a luxurious housing advanced to discourage homeless individuals from sleeping within the space across the Limehouse Basin marina in London, UK{Photograph}: Julio Etchart/ullstein bild by way of Getty Photos
