A cardboard cup of coffee and a brioche in his hand, his eyes darkened by fatigue, Guiseppe displays a fatalistic smile. “I worked in restaurants in Monaco and here, in Nice, at the Méridien hotel, he explains with passion. For twenty-one years, I earned 2,000 euros per month as a waiter at Félix Faure. Now I have fallen miserable. “ At 65 years old at the most, this jovial man came to have breakfast, this Tuesday, May 4, at the foot of the old labor exchange of the Riviera capital, Place Saint-François. It is here that, since last summer, the local branch of the Secours populaire français (SPF) begins its morning patrols around 7 a.m. “After my coffee, I go to Pôle emploi, continue Giuseppe. I receive a pension of 530 euros that I supplemented, until a few months ago, by doing extras in the interim. “ But with the health crisis, there is no longer any question of finding any odd job in the restaurant business. He is staying with his daughter, a nurse. This is not the case for this other sixty-year-old, not yet retired for his part, who arrives just before the departure of the SPF volunteers to their second distribution point. “I’ve been living outside for a month, he confides while keeping his first name secret. I put myself aside because I don’t want to become like the people I see there. In all my life, I had never needed to come to a food distribution. “ A cook, he had worked for fifteen years in restaurants on the Côte d’Azur. At the start of the pandemic, he was put on partial unemployment, then his fixed-term contract expired… Deprived of income, he had to leave his home at the beginning of spring. “But I have an appointment in a few days with my old boss, he insists hurriedly . This time, I will negotiate a CDI for when it will resume. “
As a direct consequence of the restrictive measures put in place by the government in the fight against the coronavirus, this man’s case is far from isolated. “During our last census, in February 2021, we found that 50% of people deprived of housing had been deprived for less than a year and 21% for less than a month”, points Janis, a young coordinator of the solidarity association. A situation that is all the more worrying with the health crisis, many associations have had to limit their interventions, especially during periods of confinement. This summer, in addition, some 150 places in reception centers will be closed in Nice.
“We realized that we had to have a greater presence on the ground”, explains Marie-Jo, dean of the Nice volunteers of the SPF, while filling the trunk of her car. The octogenarian is well known, here in the street, to all the poorly housed and homeless people who frequent the breakfasts offered by the association. It was she who launched the morning marauding shortly before the start of the epidemic and fought to develop them when the situation deteriorated. “She has the character of a pig, but the hand on the heart”, ironically Gérard, a former banking executive now living in the street, whose life changed around ten years ago. Many, moreover, have been forced to live outside long before the start of the pandemic, but the latter did not spare them for all that.
41.8% of people on the street have no health coverage
Not far from Place Garibaldi, around 9 a.m., at the foot of the national dramatic center occupied by intermittent and precarious people from Nice, a group of six men, in their fifties, discussing next to the truck stamped with the outstretched hand with blue and red wings by Picasso. “I am not vaccinated. We are in the street and no one follows us ”, denounces one of them, before the other five also reveal not to have benefited from the famous anti-Covid injection. The lack of medico-social support is also one of the other alarming findings drawn up by the census carried out at the end of winter by the SPF. In Nice, 41.8% of people on the street have no health coverage. 50% of them say they have not seen a doctor for six months or more and 61% are not followed by any social worker.
“This epidemic is actually a health war that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer”, strikes one of the six friends. “They kill the small traders, do nothing for the poor and they continue to make money”, throws another. “The rich in times of crisis are like children in a candy store, continues a third. This health crisis is a hold-up! “
“Macron doesn’t like us. We are not going to like it “
This feeling of mistrust vis-à-vis the powerful is widely shared at the five food distribution points organized every morning in Nice by the SPF. “Macron doesn’t like us. We are not going to like it ”, sums up Pierre in front of the building that houses the CGT union of employees of the Nice metropolis, on avenue Jean-Médecin. The volunteers of the association are not going to contradict them. Since the launch of the morning patrols, they have had to give up two distribution locations after repeated interventions by municipal police called by disgruntled residents. “The presence of homeless people disturbs, Marie-Jo points out without holding back her anger. Many wish to force them to leave the city center. “ But this barely concealed rejection of the most precarious by part of the population does not only lead to indignation. Many prefer not to benefit from the help of associations rather than having to face hateful and stigmatizing looks. This is undoubtedly the case of this man, almost a hundred years old, who arrives around 10 am, very well dressed, hiding behind Marie-Jo’s car to ask her if there is a small piece of bread left.
“We must continue to fight, resumes Marie-Jo. It’s hard. You have to be convinced of what you are doing. So many of them are ready to restart a social life. “ And the activist, who when asked her age answers that she was barely a month old when her father was mobilized in 1939, to add: “I am beside myself that the Secours populaire is being helped so little here. ”
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