Over the last 10 years, the number of homeless people in France more than doubled, a housing advocacy group said Wednesday.
According to a report by the Abbe Pierre Foundation, in 2022 France had some 330,000 homeless people. This includes people living on the streets, emergency shelters, or asylum centers.
Manuel Domergue, the group’s study director, told a press conference that 200,000 people live in emergency shelters, 110,000 are immigrants in reception and asylum centers, and 27,000 live on the streets, subways, in cars, or in tents, daily Le Figaro added.
The number jumped 130% since 2012, the group said, referring to the last study done by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE).
A total of 12.1 million people face accommodation precarity, particularly due to the rise in rent and heating prices.
The foundation also expressed concern over the rising number of homeless pregnant women or mothers and their children.
On Dec. 5 in Paris, authorities failed to shelter 122 children under the age of 3 whose parents declared to the local services that they could not take care of them. Authorities nationwide on the same day also failed to accommodate 5,000 people, including 1,346 children who contacted emergency shelters, the report added.
