This Thursday, November 23 in the morning, the police went to Saint-André-lez-Lille to summon several undocumented strikers to the police station. For 146 days, they have been denouncing their working conditions and demanding the regularization of their residence permits.
Thursday, November 23 in the morning, a CRS convoy intervened at the Halte Saint Jean in Saint-André-lez-Lille, where fellow undocumented Emmaüs strikers were beginning their 146th day of mobilization. “Ils were taken out of their beds, they were sleeping when the police arrivedexplains Ioannis Kappopoulos, lawyer for the strikers. This morning the doors of the shelter were wide open, the CRS charged the demonstrators, it’s police intimidation.” On November 8, the Lille court requested, in an order, the release and an end to the blockade of the Halte Saint Jean.
On social networks, videos show police officers holding shields in front of the strikers. Still according to the lawyer, some were assaulted and companions were transferred to the emergency room. The police used smoke bombs and the workers’ strike fund apparently disappeared. “The strikers are not going to move a millimeter and they are right”, says Ioannis Kappopoulos. Several companions were summoned to the police station on Monday, November 27.
In a press release, the CGT condemns “firmly this unleashing of violence, as gratuitous as it is counterproductive”and requires “the immediate return of union equipment and the strike fund, the urgent holding of a round table, in the presence of the Ministry of the Interior, the North prefecture, the management of Emmaüs France and the structures of the CGT concerned.”
🚨 Emmaüs: the CGT demands that the government put an end to the prefect’s indiscriminate repression!
This morning the police intervened with batons and gas in the homes of the strikers. The union equipment and the strike fund were taken away! pic.twitter.com/sh7Pp3TaBj— The CGT (@lacgtcommunique) November 23, 2023
In June 2023, the Emmaüs community of Halte Saint Jean, was raided, following accusations of human trafficking and hidden work. Since July 3, 2023, around twenty companions from the Emmaus shelter have been on strike. They denounce in particular thetheir working conditions and the failure to obtain papers, after more than three years spent within the structure as volunteers.
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