Whatever it takes. A year after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, France has spent nearly half a billion euros to offer an “unprecedented” welcome to some 100,000 displaced people who have found refuge on the territory. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, which generated the largest refugee movement in Europe since World War II, France has spent more than 490 million euros to offer a “scheme “unprecedented welcome” to Ukrainians, the French Interior Ministry said on Thursday.
In detail, almost 220 million euros have been spent “under the temporary protection allowance” granted throughout Europe to Ukrainians. The latter were thus able to benefit from the allowance for asylum seekers (Ada) even if they are exempted from applying for refugee status. About 260 million were also spent “for accommodation” and 10.1 million “for day care and transport”, detailed the Ministry of the Interior to Agence France-Presse .
Accommodation, which represents half of the cost of reception, includes in particular requisitioned hotels and holiday centres, emergency accommodation places mobilized – 30,000 at the height of the crisis, in March and April 2022 – or even the reception “airlocks” set up everywhere in France. In addition, approximately 30,000 displaced Ukrainians have been housed with citizens.
Nearly 900 of these French households have received financial aid from the State since the end of 2022, “for an amount of 786,285 euros”, the Ministry of Housing told AFP on Wednesday.
Between March 10, 2022 and January 30, 2023, France welcomed more than 100,000 Ukrainians, “including nearly 80% of women”, also specified Thursday the Ministry of the Interior, which explains that it issued “provisional authorizations stay” (APS) to 87,928 Ukrainians (excluding children) over this period. That is nearly 146,000 APS issued when renewals are taken into account.
These residence permits are valid for six months renewable and allow Ukrainians to settle in France in a regular situation while benefiting from a series of social rights: access to work, health services, schooling for children, emergency accommodation, housing assistance… Support with open arms which was accompanied, for a year, by criticism from the French associative fabric, which denounced a two-speed welcome between Ukrainians and the rest exiles.
“What we have done for the Ukrainians can serve as a model” for future migration crises, said in an interview with AFP the leader of the France Terre d’Asile association, Delphine Rouilleault. “There was absolutely no need for this massive reception of displaced people to impact the common law mechanisms. We did this to preserve generalist emergency accommodation at all costs ”, especially for the most vulnerable, defended the Ministry of the Interior.
A year later, while a wave of returns has been observed, the arrivals of Ukrainians have largely dried up. Where a thousand of them showed up daily at the only Parisian reception point in March 2022, there remains only a “small flow” of a few hundred people throughout the territory over a month.
Why should dedicated reception centers be closed? “We are in a logic of gradual closure”, agrees Place Beauvau, which does not want however “not to close (the) too quickly in the event of secondary movements”. With around 100,000 displaced persons, France has only taken in a tiny fraction of the approximately 8 million Ukrainian refugees identified in Europe by the United Nations Refugee Agency (HCR).
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