Solidarithe in Paris. Leo Plunkett. All rights reserved.Alberto Biella, a tall and friendly post-doc student from Italy, has just finished overseeing a busy distribution with Solidarithé, a grass roots collective that distributes tea and information to newly arrived refugees in the north of Paris. It’s November and it is cold out, though nowhere near as cold as it will be soon.
“It is not easy for people to find somewhere to sleep. Police have been given instructions to remove people’s tents and blankets and throw them away, and it happens very frequently,” he tells me. “They have an instruction to remove people from this area, which they have to follow.”
Alberto is pointing out how his work has changed since August 18, when the makeshift encampment that had formed around the humanitarian centre at Porte de la Chapelle was cleared. The dispersal was followed by a two-week lockdown on almost all food and drink distributions, and accompanied by a reinforced presence of CRS (riot police). Police have been given instructions to remove people’s tents and blankets and throw them away.
