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French police evict hundreds from abandoned Paris warehouse ahead of Olympics

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PARIS (AP) — With the Paris Olympic Games 100 days away, police carried out a large-scale eviction at France’s biggest squat in the south of the country’s capital. Authorities, including dozens of gendarmes, cleared out the makeshift camp at an abandoned bus company headquarters in Vitry-sur-Seine on Wednesday.

The camp had become home to about 450 migrants, with images of the eviction spreading rapidly across social media.

DESPITE SECURITY RISKS, PLANS TO OPEN PARIS OLYMPICS ON RIVER SEINE REMAIN UNCHANGED AND ON TRACK

Aid workers are concerned that the broader effort by Paris authorities to clear out migrants and other people sleeping rough in the city before the summer Olympics is troubling, as those evicted are not provided longer-term housing assistance.

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A person sleeps just next to the Eiffel Tower Wednesday, April 10, 2024 in Paris. With the Paris Games 100 days away, French police carried out a large-scale eviction at an abandoned factory, located on the southern outskirts of Paris in Vitry-sur-Sein on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Laurent Cipriani/AP Photo)

«The squat was the biggest in France. It doubled in size in one year because of the Olympics. Last year, authorities cleared out migrants from nearby the Olympic Village, and many displaced people came here,» said Paul Alauzy of the humanitarian organization Médecins du Monde, who has been closely following the steady pace of evictions over two years.

The conditions inside the warehouse were cramped, Alauzy said.

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The clearance operation will continue over several days. The site is empty: 150 people left the night before the police arrived, while 300 were evicted before 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Among the 450 were 20 children and 50 women, the aid group said.

This action is part of a broader push by local authorities to dismantle makeshift camps as the city prepares to host the Olympics from July 26 to August 11.

Advocacy groups working with the homeless and other vulnerable populations have been voicing their concerns for months. They have been particularly vocal about the accelerated pace of camp clearances as the Games approach, warning of the dire consequences for those who find themselves without shelter.

On Wednesday, observers said some five buses were at the site, intended to transport migrants to specially allocated sites in cities such as Orleans or Bordeaux, or in the wider Paris region, Ile-de-France. Other migrants will be bused to temporary filtering sites.

Alauzy said he fears that «it will just be a matter of days or weeks for many of the migrants to be sleeping rough on the street again.»

Umbrella association Revers de la Medaille, French for The Medal’s Other Side, which underscores the harmful effects of the Games on the most precarious populations, said it did «not know where families with school-going children were sent to.»

The fate of these displaced individuals remains a pressing issue as the city gears up for its time in the global spotlight, highlighting the tension between urban beautification efforts and support for marginalized communities.

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Earlier this month, French police removed about 50 migrants, including families with young children, from the forecourt of Paris City Hall. The migrants packed their belongings and boarded a bus to temporary government housing in the town of Besançon in eastern France.

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Responding to a question about Wednesday’s evacuation, French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said she wanted «to emphasize is that it has nothing to do with the Olympics.»

«These policies, they were implemented before the Games, they will be implemented after the Games,» she said. «And we want to handle those difficult situations with the best possible humanity. This is why we work with the aid groups. We really want to make things as fair as they can be.»

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British doctor jailed for trying to kill mother’s partner with fake COVID jab

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A British doctor was on Wednesday jailed for more than 31 years for an audacious but unsuccessful plot to kill his mother’s partner with a fake COVID-19 vaccine, which involved him forging medical documents and dressing in disguise to poison his victim.

Thomas Kwan, 53, passed himself off as a nurse and even took his own mother’s blood pressure before administering poison to her then partner Patrick O’Hara in Newcastle, northern England.

BRITISH DOCTOR ADMITS TO ATTEMPTED MURDER AFTER INJECTING MOTHER’S PARTNER WITH POISON DISGUISED AS VACCINE

O’Hara survived but suffered from necrotising faciitis, a potentially fatal flesh-eating bacterial infection, after receiving the jab. He also underwent multiple operations.

Kwan, a family doctor in Sunderland, pleaded guilty to attempted murder last month shortly after his trial began at Newcastle Crown Court. He had previously admitted a charge of administering a noxious substance.

Judge Christina Lambert sentenced Kwan to 31 years and five months in prison for what she described as «an audacious plan to murder a man in plain sight».

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She told Kwan that his plan involved him «abusing your knowledge of the healthcare system», adding that his actions damaged public confidence in the healthcare profession.

A British doctor has been jailed for more than 31 years for a plot to kill his mother’s partner with a fake COVID-19 vaccine. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement after the sentencing that O’Hara was injected with «an as-yet unconfirmed toxin».

‘STRANGER THAN FICTION’

Prosecutor Peter Makepeace told jurors on the first day of Kwan’s trial: «Sometimes, occasionally perhaps, the truth really is stranger than fiction.»

He said Kwan was concerned about his mother’s will, which provided that her house would be inherited by O’Hara if he was still alive when his mother died.

«Mr Kwan used his encyclopaedic knowledge of, and research into, poisons to carry out his plan,» Makepeace said.

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«That plan was to disguise himself as a community nurse, attend Mr O’Hara’s address, the home he shared with the defendant’s mother, and inject him with a dangerous poison under the pretext of administering a COVID booster injection.»

Kwan checked into a hotel under a false name, used false number plates on his car and disguised himself with a wig to carry out the plan, Makepeace added.

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After Kwan was arrested, police found in his home a large number of castor beans and a recipe for manufacturing ricin, a biological toxin made from the beans. Exposure to as little as a pinhead amount of ricin can cause death.

A chemical expert concluded O’Hara was not injected with ricin, however.


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