France transports homeless immigrants outside Paris before the Olympic Games

The French government is transporting thousands of homeless immigrants by bus, moving them out of Paris before the Olympics.

Migrants said they were promised shelter elsewhere, but have already ended up living on unknown roads away from home, according to the New York Times “.

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised that the Olympics will display the country's splendor.

However, the Olympic Village was built in one of Paris's poorest suburbs, where thousands live in street camps, shelters, or abandoned buildings.

“Around the city during the past year, police and courts have expelled approximately 5,000 people, most of whom single men”, according to Christophe Noel du Paira, a senior government official in Paris.

City officials have urged them to board buses to cities like Lyons or Marseilles.

“We were expelled because of the” Olympic Games, Mohammed Ibrahim, from Chad, who was expelled from an abandoned cement factory near the Olympic village, said.

He moved to a building in southern Paris, from which police expelled residents in April.

A bus took them two hours southwest to a town outside Orleans.

Macro government officials have declined to comment.

But, they said this is a voluntary programme aimed at facilitating the lack of emergency housing in Paris.

Why is Macro transporting people by bus?

There is not enough housing space for 100,000 homeless people living in Paris and around half the total in France so the government created 10 temporary shelters across the country last year.

The French government has denied that the bus is linked to the Olympics.

But according to the newspaper “LÉquipe”, a government housing official, said the goal was “to identify people on the street in places near Olympic venues” and move them before the Games.