So far, very few Ukrainian refugees have arrived in France, but the situation could quickly change as new “waves” are to come. The government anticipates the massive arrival in France in the coming weeks of 50,000 to 100,000 people, a scenario which requires resizing the planned reception system.
Of the more than 2.1 million displaced due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, France had received more than 7,000 people on Thursday, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior. But “we are trying to be ready for volumes which will probably be much more significant in the days or weeks to come”, declared Thursday the prefect Joseph Zimet, who leads the interministerial crisis unit (CIC) on the subject, during a meeting. a press conference at the Ministry of the Interior.
“Prepare, plan, organize, regulate”
“We must anticipate to be ready if necessary to welcome 50,000, perhaps 100,000 refugees”, he estimated at the end of the first meeting of the CIC. “We must prepare, plan, organize, regulate the system and already identify the accommodation capacities” to be able to accommodate, explained the former communications adviser to Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée.
After a “first wave” of people fleeing Ukraine who “joined people in Europe” because they had relatives there, “we anticipate a second and a third wave of people who will be more destitute refugees” and who will be able to rely on accommodation with their relatives, underlined Joseph Zimet.
Low Ukrainian diaspora in France
At this stage, declared a few hours earlier the Minister Delegate for Citizenship Marlène Schiappa to some journalists, “we can cope, there is no shortage of housing”. According to border police reports, 7,251 people, including 6,967 Ukrainians, were on French soil or had passed through it on Thursday morning and 3,054 of them were receiving care.
“In the wave of migration that is coming towards us, we have to be able to distinguish between people who are destined to stay and those who are just passing through, in particular to join larger communities in southern Europe”, continued Joseph Zimet. . Italy, for example, hosted a community of about 225,000 Ukrainians before the war, and there were nearly 100,000 in Spain, according to Eurostat data. France, it lists some 18,000 residence permits issued to Ukrainians.
“If Odessa falls…”
“Until now we were a transit country. We are going to become rather a country of fixation, ”summarizes the prefect Zimet. For the moment, these are only projections and “hypotheses”, but already “we can see a huge flow” between the countries where Ukrainians have taken massive refuge (in particular more than a million in Poland). , via the French diplomatic apparatus, explains the coordinator of the CIC.
“We had alerts for example on departures from Germany, Poland” to France, he said. “All of this is deciphered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The order placed with the CIC is to produce models for next week” in order to prepare for the reception. “If Odessa falls”, for example, “there will be another new wave, part of which will come to us”, he still believes.