Ouagadougou: ‘We live this on a daily basis’: Mandresy Randrianarivony laughed ‘yellowly’ at the videos showing the dilapidation of her student residence, requisitioned this summer in Paris to house the student police officers deployed as reinforcements for the Olympic Games.
Cockroaches, mold, animal droppings… Two police unions broadcast images of this residence in the north of the capital on July 13 on social networks, filmed by the students.
‘Unacceptable accommodation conditions,’ denounced to a union. ‘Numberous cockroaches, mouse droppings and other rubbish,’ detailed the other.
The Crous, the public body managing these residences, reacted as quickly as possible: the day after the reports, which targeted between 15 and 20 housing units, it dispatched cleaning teams and a company specializing in the treatment of cockroaches. And even offered rehousing to student police officers.
Enough to exasperate Mandresy, who lived in this residence for six years before moving out in May, requisition required, a
nd sees in the immediate reaction of the Crous a ‘double standard’.
‘It’s not normal for police officers to be housed like that, but it’s completely normalized when it’s students,’ he said: ‘our testimony has no weight for us.’
The 25-year-old student recalls having been forced to do his dishes for six months in his bathroom, due to an unresolved piping problem despite his numerous reminders to the residence management.
He also describes the damp spots, the recurring lack of heating, his room ‘at 11 degrees’ in winter and the state of ‘paranoia’ into which a ‘cockroach infestation’ had plunged him.
‘For each problem observed and reported, residence staff systematically intervene,’ the Crous de Paris told AFP, which ensures that ‘there was not the slightest report’ in the other requisitioned residences. .
‘It has obviously been years and years that student unions have been warning about the conditions in which students live in the Crous,’ annoys Niel, an activist who prefers to keep his surname silent: ‘w
e are just not being heard’ .
And the 24-year-old student recalls the ‘dozens of mobilizations over unsanitary Crous residences’.
Several students from the requisitioned residences also point to renovation work which takes place just before the reception of the police.
‘We took advantage of the fact that the accommodation was empty to carry out repairs, the same ones that we regularly carry out with each change of occupant,’ assures the Crous de Paris.
‘These residences are in a very advanced state of deterioration, it is not simply by putting a lick of polish that things will get better,’ says Niel, who is calling for a major investment plan in France for construction and maintenance. renovation of student accommodation.
In total, 12 Crous residences were requisitioned this summer in Paris and its region to house law enforcement, firefighters and caregivers mobilized for the Olympics (July 26 – August 11).
Around 3,000 Ile-de-France students were forced to leave their accommodation to make room for the
m.
Source: Burkina Information Agency