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Paris Is Getting a Camp for Homeless Migrants, Mayor Announces

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Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo gives a press conference regarding the creation of an official camp to welcome migrants on May 31, 2016 in Paris. The mayor of Paris said on Tuesday she wanted to create a refugee camp in the French capital to replace makeshift camps that are habitually closed down for health reasons. City authorities are "assessing different sites" for their suitability to create a camp "as soon as possible", Mayor Anne Hidalgo told during a press conference. / AFP / MATTHIEU ALEXANDRE (Photo credit should read MATTHIEU ALEXANDRE/AFP/Getty Images)
Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo gives a press conference regarding the creation of an official camp to welcome migrants in Paris on May 30, 2016.Matthieu Alexandre—AFP/Getty Images
By Tara John

The mayor of Paris announced Tuesday that a “humanitarian camp” will be set up in the French capital in the next six weeks, to support the hundreds of homeless migrants in the city.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the situation in Paris is no longer “tenable,” reports the BBC. Citing a makeshift camp that has sprung up in the north of Paris over the last few days, which has now become home to 800 people, Hidalgo said city officials “are going to work extra hard on this.”

Hidalgo added that the new camp will be modeled on the one created near Calais to take in people who had been staying in the makeshift migrant camp known as the “Jungle.”

Her announcement comes after a deadly week for Europe-bound migrants: the International Organization for Migration announced on Tuesday that more than 1,000 migrants are estimated to be dead or missing in recent shipwrecks.

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