On a graffiti-stained sidewalk in Paris, a wierd sight appeared days earlier than the Olympic opening ceremony in July: Round 40 big cement Lego-like blocks in neat rows beneath the Pont de Stains, a bridge within the northern suburb of Aubervilliers that connects two Olympic websites, the Stade de France and the Parc des Nations.
This place was a homeless encampment, the place round 100 individuals, lots of them migrants, lived in tents. Then on July 17, the police arrived and instructed everybody to go away, as a part of a cleanup operation wherein authorities put homeless individuals, members of the Roma group, migrants, and intercourse staff on buses to different cities, resembling Bordeaux or Toulouse.
As soon as the authorities emptied the realm, based on activists, the immovable blocks of concrete had been put in rather than the tents, ending any notion the previous residents might in the future be capable to return.
Campaigners say these bricks are an instance of hostile structure, a time period used to explain a number of the most seen adjustments cities and corporations make to discourage homeless individuals loitering or sleeping on their properties. “This is not new, but it has been intensified in a very specific way during the Olympics,” says Antoine de Clerck, a part of Le Revers de la Médaille, a gaggle of activists elevating consciousness of how marginalized persons are handled through the Olympic Video games.
“We do not advocate for encampments and squats and shantytowns,” provides de Clerck. “But to eradicate them, you have to find alternative long-term solutions.”
Regardless of different examples of hostile structure in Paris, together with picnic tables put in the place individuals used to sleep, it’s the big Lego-style blocks which have proved most controversial. “I haven’t seen anything quite like this,” says Jules Boykoff, a professor and former skilled soccer participant who research the affect of the Olympics on marginalized communities. “Typically, hostile architecture is more subtle,” he says, “like a curved bus bench that makes it less comfortable for somebody to sleep.”
Anti-homeless spikes and tough surfaces put in in a luxurious housing complicated to discourage homeless individuals from sleeping within the space across the Limehouse Basin marina in London, UK{Photograph}: Julio Etchart/ullstein bild by way of Getty Photos
