An emergency transit center for migrants in Briançon near the French-Italian border has been forced to close because of extreme overcrowding. The local mayor hinted that he was not sad at the news.
The Terrasses Solidaires (Solidarity Terraces) center in Briançon, Europe's highest city, opened in 2021. Intended to provide short-term shelter to migrants crossing the border from Italy into France, the center is able to accommodate up to 81 people. But over the past few weeks it had become massively overcrowded, hosting over 300 migrants.
On August 30 the center closed its doors and residents moved into tents pitched in the grounds of the local parish.
"For reasons of security, for the sake of the dignity of migrants, fatigue on the part of volunteers and a lack of food, we are no longer able to manage Les Terrasses Solidaires," said Jean Gaboriau from Refuges Solidaires, one of the associations managing the center.
Especially vulnerable migrants, single women, pregnant women, unaccompanied minors and those with medical conditions, continued to be given shelter by Refuges Solidaires in a hall next to the church.
This is the second time the center has had to close due to overcrowding. In October 2021, after a huge influx of migrants, it shut down and nearly 300 people had to sleep in the Briançon train station.
The number of migrants, mainly sub-Saharan Africans, arriving at the reception facility rose sharply last month. Gaboriau told InfoMigrants in July that the increase in arrivals in Italy that had resulted from anti-migrant discourse in Tunisia was having repercussions in Briançon, which is one of the first French cities after the Italian border in the Hautes-Alpes.
"We are not a reception center but a place of transit where migrants can rest for one or two days before resuming their journey. It is not intended to be a place where people settle," he told InfoMigrants last week.
Authorities oppose reopening
Refuges Solidaires has previously pointed to the rising cost of train travel to Paris as a cause of the increased pressure on the Briançon center. The organization has been calling on the authorities for months to find solutions, but nothing has been done, Gaboriau says.
On Friday (September 1), Doctors of the World (Médecins du Monde), a Terrasses Solidaires partner organization along with EKO! (Low-tech & Refugees), All Migrants, Secours Catholique-Caritas France and Refuges Solidaires, also demanded that authorities urgently provide shelter.
The mayor of Briançon, Arnaud Murgia, continued to call for tighter border controls and said he was opposed to the reopening of the site. "All this has lasted too long, and I will use all legal means in my possession. I also wrote today to [Prime Minister] Élisabeth Borne to alert her to a migratory situation that is getting out of hand," Murgia wrote on the social platform X (formerly Twitter).
Migrants trying to cross the border from Italy into France at Briançon often take extremely dangerous routes. Since 2018, at least nine people have died while trying to reach France.
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