Interview with Marie Cougoureux

First of all, can you tell us about the Halte Humanitaire (humanitarian drop-in centre) and how it came to be?

In June 2018, Paris City Council contacted the Fondation de l’Armée Du Salut (Salvation Army Foundation) about the possibility of distributing breakfasts in the Chapelle neighbourhood (18th arrondissement). They were interested in working with the Foundation because we had not been working with migrants for long, compared to more established organisations (e.g., Emmaüs, Aurore…). We replied that we could provide logistical support to the grassroots collectives who were already distributing breakfasts on a daily basis. However, because of the funding from the City Council, the collectives did not want to take part. We therefore had to recruit and train our own volunteers to carry out the distributions. We then began to establish our own network with associations and collectives as we all got to know each other. The fact that we were new meant that we weren’t stigmatised or associated with anything. Despite the ‘weakness’ of our position, with funding from the City Council, and even though, like everyone else, we struggled on the ground, we managed to prove our worth. We eventually gained legitimacy and Utopia 56, for example, began to broadcast information about the breakfasts. Things gradually fell into place.

In April 2019, the situation became more tense: there were more and more people in the street, and camps were getting bigger. There was growing discontent within the associations. Staff were asking to exercise their right to withdraw and threatened to go on strike. Faced with this rebellion, the City Council came to see us and told us about a small piece of land that was available at Porte de la Chapelle. This reduced the pressure to some extent, though the activist inter-association body refused to implement activities on City property because it wanted to maintain its independence, and was sceptical about the opening of this drop-in centre. It also criticised the fact that the location, once again, was close to the Paris ring road. As such, it wouldn’t increase the migrants’ visibility, a crucial issue in terms of advocacy. The Salvation Army Foundation therefore started the project alone.

In May 2019, the drop-in centre opened with the aim of providing access to toilets, showers and a launderette for people in camps in the north-east of Paris (La Chapelle, Saint-Denis and La Villette). The ‘Halte Humanitaire’ was a day-time drop-in centre with a rest hall where, for example, the migrants were able to recharge their phones. The hall was also made available to associations who work outside (so that they were not limited to providing assistance in the street), such as the nurses of the ‘Samu social’ and ‘Ego’, and the social workers of ‘France Terre d’Asile’, who help migrants with their rights. It was easier to start the project with these associations as they are funded by the state and/or the City.  Later on, the hall was also used for meetings between doctors, such as the City of Paris Medical Social Workers, the ‘Samu Social’ doctors, and volunteers from the ‘Association Médicale Adventiste de Langue Française’ (AMALF).

The activities continued from month to month until the end of September, without any visibility, but partnerships began to take shape, such as with an association of psychologists (‘Le chêne et l’hibiscus’), with some artists for a cultural project, with French teachers (‘la Halte’ volunteers), etc. The drop-in centre was therefore useful both for migrants living in the streets, and for voluntary workers, as it provided a space for dialogue between associations. With these two objectives in mind, the monthly steering committee was opened up to other organisations (‘Médecins du Monde’ and ‘Utopia 56’). This allowed the more active fringe of the inter-association body, who were not involved in the drop-in centre, to ‘come and see’ and to talk with the different organisations involved, such as the Paris and Saint-Denis City Councils. The key issue was the transparency of this very political centre (particularly due to its promotion by Paris City Council). The opening up of the steering committee was therefore quite innovative, even though it did lead to some tension.

What was the context when the lockdown was decided? What problems did this create?

On the first day of lockdown, people in the camps suddenly found themselves in a state of complete food insecurity. They were not allowed to leave the camps, and no longer had access to anything. The government clearly forgot about the needs of all the people in the street. Instead, they sent the police to surround the camps and prevent people from moving, despite the fact that they were in danger because they did not have access to water, or hygiene, etc. And, of course, there was violence in the camps, and the state did nothing to protect people. In short, it was very like a humanitarian context. At the same time, associations were suddenly no longer present (many volunteers, particularly those who were elderly, no longer came to help). And the administrative and operational public services that migrants have a right to, and that allow them to obtain papers to stay in the country legally, were no longer available. It was all blocked. So, then there was a proper deployment of international humanitarian NGOs, such as Médecins du Monde, to provide access to water. Their technical know-how was clearly an advantage.

Here at the Foundation, we worked with ‘Chorba’ on a food aid programme, adding our trucks to the humanitarian deployment. New grassroots collectives were set up and we quickly needed to know who was still active and operating among the different organisations (collectives, associations, NGOs, etc.). Rapidly, new partnerships were established and we began to work differently. The inter-association dynamic became much stronger and everyone began doing work that they weren’t used to doing. Staff from other associations who had stopped operating joined us as volunteers. This all happened very quickly and we had to adapt in the heat of the moment. It was ‘cobbled together’ – intuitive, organic and horizontal. There was a real synergy between all the people who were available, both at headquarters and on the ground.

The drop-in centre subsequently stayed open and became a reference centre for medical issues (with a limited capacity of up to 100 people maximum on the site). Paris City Council supplied the medicine for the AMALF volunteers. The Samu social, Médecins sans frontiers and others were deployed on other structures. There was a sudden explosion in food distribution: from one day to the next, 3000 meals began to be distributed every day.

How did the second lockdown go?

Initially, limited medical consultations were able to take place. Then later, we were able to open normally. Our activities received a lot of attention in the media. The partners involved were the same as during the first lockdown: MSF, the City of Paris Mobile Health Team, AMALF and Samu Social. We also established a service to refer migrants for psychological assistance.

What are the main issues at stake today?

Today, the aim is to ensure that our activities are integrated into common law and are no longer used to substitute for state action (or, at least, as little as possible). For example, there are currently 17 washing facilities available in Paris. Yet, our assessments show that they are not at all saturated. To improve the connection with common law, we have to put in place mobile mediation teams, provide physical support, distribute metro tickets, etc.

We also have to counter mistrust and misconceptions, the objective clearly being that people speak to each other much more. There are a lot of ‘conspiracy’ theories at the moment around the camps, particularly after evacuations that go badly, like the one in Saint-Denis, particularly on the part of the militant collectives. The problem comes from people who do not have access to the ‘system’. Because, when you are in the system, or at least when you observe events from the inside, your understanding is much more nuanced and you are aware of the complexity of the issues at stake. There therefore needs to be more dialogue between actors and better communication with those who are outside.

Do you feel as if you are delivering ‘humanitarian aid’, in the normal sense of the term, that is, as if you were in another country?

Yes, we are clearly dealing with humanitarian issues, like access to water, hygiene, food, rights, etc. This was all new to the Foundation. I was seen as the humanitarian expert who knew how to do everything, even though I’d never done any genuine relief work. Before, I worked for MSF on a multi-year, community-level HIV programme in DRC! Still, my experience reassured both the associations and Paris City Council. People were happy about my humanitarian credentials because we had to launch a distribution in an extremely insecure context.

What is the added value of the humanitarian organisations who work with you?

It mainly has to do with the support they bring to project development and studies to improve knowledge about beneficiaries. The partnership with Action contre la Faim (ACF) is in keeping with this idea of complementarity. ACF allows us to analyse practices through in-depth studies that help us to understand who the beneficiaries really are. Because, nowadays, if you ask an association to distribute food, they’ll only have the time and resources to execute the task. They come and then they leave. They only do what the politicians, who use them to manage the crisis, ask them to do. Whereas I need to understand, which is not what is expected from associations. So, currently, ACF really helps us in terms of project development. And you can’t ask volunteers to do that. The City should do it but they don’t, or they don’t share it with us. ACF helps us to take a step back from simply doing what the state asks us to do. But it is not ACF as a humanitarian organisation that I trust. It is such and such a person, whether Parisian or French, who knows the context well. If it was someone from Germany who turned up and it took me five months to explain the situation, and they then left after six months, I would have stopped working with humanitarians a long time ago. Here, it is different. Everyone is an activist in their own way. To some extent, it is like going back to the original humanitarian engagement.