Police on Tuesday, March 18, evacuated hundreds of young migrants from a central Paris theater they had occupied for months, arresting 46 people police said. Police with batons charged the migrants, who had found shelter in the historic Gaîté Lyrique venue, as many people gathered outside to protest against the eviction, they said.
Shortly before 6 am, members of the anti-riot CRS police forced their way through cordons that activists had formed to prevent them from entering the venue. But, in chaotic and turbulent scenes, police forced their way into the 19th-century theatre, which is famous for performances of opera, operetta and ballet and which had canceled all performances during the three-month occupation by migrants demanding food and shelter. Many are underage and asked to be treated as such in their immigration process.
Paris Police Prefect Laurent Nuñez said 46 people were arrested, for "rebelling" during the evacuation and others for "administrative checks." It was not immediately clear if all were migrants.
The eviction came a day after Nuñez gave the order to clear the building, occupied by up to 450 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa. Nuñez called the occupation of the theater a threat to "public order." He promised that the young migrants would be offered shelter and their legal situation would be examined. Agents working for the Paris region's emergency shelter services were on site and talking to migrants, an AFP reporter said.
Agence France-Presse reporters saw some migrants leaving the building carrying personal belongings, with several suitcases and bags left abandoned on the pavement. "I need to go to class at 10 am today," said Adama, who said he was 15 and from Côte d'Ivoire. "I don't know what to tell my teacher. I need to leave a message saying that I won't make it." He added: "We haven't killed anybody, we don't steal. We came here to become integrated."
Danielle Simonnet, a leftist lawmaker on site to protest against the police action, called it "extremely violent," telling AFP that officers had "hit and beaten" the migrants, who she said were behaving "peacefully." Demonstrators and migrants chanted slogans such as "we are all the children of migrants" as they were surrounded by police in riot gear.
The occupation of the Gaîté Lyrique began on December 10 with around 200 young migrants. The theater canceled all planned performances a week later, saying it condemned the occupation but also "the inaction by authorities." The following months became an illustration of a standoff between left-wing activists fighting for migrant rights, and the far right calling for their expulsion.