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The Dismantling of the Roma Camp in Villenave-d’Ornon: A Major Undertaking

Not a spade on the vast Roma camp promised to be dismantled, this Thursday, August 17, Chemin de la Caminasse in Villenave-d’Ornon. Or almost: if, at the start of the morning, the land was free of any occupation when the police, Mayor Michel Poignonec and representatives of the prefecture arrived, seven kittens were entrusted to the SPA and at least two others were hopping still in a setting of outdated caravans and makeshift shelters.

Without a big…

Not a spade on the vast Roma camp promised to be dismantled, this Thursday, August 17, Chemin de la Caminasse in Villenave-d’Ornon. Or almost: if, at the start of the morning, the land was free of any occupation when the police, Mayor Michel Poignonec and representatives of the prefecture arrived, seven kittens were entrusted to the SPA and at least two others were hopping still in a setting of outdated caravans and makeshift shelters.

Unsurprisingly, the evacuation was a formality. The last occupants left the day before, in the afternoon, leaving behind them the remains of a slum taken over in January to become the largest in the Bordeaux urban area in the spring, with more than 800 inhabitants, including 200 children. They were only 70, in the middle of last week, the main contingent having returned to Romania ten days ago, on the Moldavian border, it seems the time of the “holidays”, one blew on the spot.

The great means

Deputy director of cabinet at the prefecture of Gironde, Sandrine Muzotte, present in the camp, could only note the “spontaneous departure” of the families. Of the “195 households” approached by the agents of the Departmental Directorate of Employment, Labor and Solidarity (DDETS), “about ten had expressed an interest” for a temporary solution of accommodation in the hotel, and ” only one had taken the step, ”she says. The latter also packed up: “The collective has taken over. »

Where have they gone? After an aborted attempt on private land in Cadaujac, which required the intervention of the gendarmes, it is a question of “Bordeaux” or even “Langon”. “They covered their tracks”, notes Michel Poignonec, mayor of Villenave-d’Ornon. Here, the City is regaining possession of its land, i.e. 3.5 hectares on the banks of the Garonne, with major resources: three mechanical shovels, including one allocated by Bordeaux Métropole, and a bulldozer.

“Between what we see today and what we plan, there is a huge gap,” said Michel Poignonec, mayor of Villenave-d’Ornon.

Laurent Theillet/ “South West”

“The site will be plowed”

Objective: “to make a first sorting”, indicates the mayor, between the twenty carcasses of cars, burned or deboned, the dozens of caravans and the shelters erected here and there with recycled materials. “Everything will be crushed on site, there will be no more usable elements on the site or nearby. In fact, a number of installations have been dismantled in recent days. “All week, there have been rotations,” confirms the mayor.

Work started shortly before 10 a.m., as soon as the district’s power supply was cut off by Enedis – many wild connections crossed the site. It is expected to last “several days or weeks”, continues Michel Poignonec, sticking his head in a makeshift awning: “In this type of barracks, we have an old fridge, scrap metal, and the caravan behind…” All of this will be piled up on site, set back from the road, before being sent to a “professional waste disposal centre”. Will follow the last step, supposed to ward off any intrusion: “The site will be plowed, we will make the crossing impossible. »

Hence a “significant” budget estimated at “200,000 – 300,000 euros”, repeats the mayor, at the expense of the municipality: if he does not fail to praise “the attentive listening of the prefect” Étienne Guyot in the outcome of the case, Michel Poignonec intends to seek “exceptional aid from the State”. The question of the depollution of the land, “where hundreds of empty cars have been dumped”, arises all the more so as the City intends to install its second urban farm there, after that of Baugé. “Between what we see today and what we project, there is a huge gap”, agrees Michel Poignonec.

2023-08-17 22:28:25
#Gironde #slum #VillenavedOrnon #evacuated #place #mechanical #shovels

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