Heard on Maritima radio,
The Marseille administrative court ordered the Bouches-du-Rhône department on Monday to update the list of unaccompanied minors present on its territory and to provide them with assistance and shelter within 15 days.
The court had been seized in summary by several associations including Médecins du monde and La Cimade. They accused the departmental council of “taking refuge behind a material impossibility or a lack of means” in order not to fulfill their obligation, thus causing “a serious violation of the right to life and to the protection of health” enshrined in the Constitution.
This referral followed a mobilization of unaccompanied minors on March 2 in front of the town hall of Marseille, who demanded their shelter in a context of health emergency linked to the Covid-19 crisis.
The municipality, controlled by the left, then proceeded urgently to accommodate 38 young people in a gymnasium, denouncing “the guilty silence” of the departmental council headed by the right. The LR president of the department Martine Vassal – unhappy candidate for mayor in the spring – replied by accusing the city of “instrumentalizing poverty”.
In the end, only 7 of the 38 young people, placed under temporary placement order, were taken care of by the department which decided to wait for a “feedback from the minority of other people”.
Before the court, the departmental council contested any “deficiency” on its part in the care of unaccompanied minors, “to the extent that places exist in number”: 955 in December 2020 to which were added 135 places in 2021.
The court however considered that, “without ignoring (…) the quality of the diligence carried out by the department, the homeless maintenance of young adolescents” characterized “a deficiency in the fulfillment of its obligation of emergency accommodation” .
He therefore ordered the community to “jointly draw up with the requesting associations an updated list of names identifying the young people recognized as minors” and to ensure their “shelter and assistance”.
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