The signatories recognized as “healthy” the exceptional measures put in place to welcome people fleeing the war in Ukraine, which allowed 70,000 people to be welcomed in France and benefit from easier access to their social rights and accommodation.

However, they lamented the situation of abandonment in which thousands of migrants of other nationalities live, since “all the displaced must be able to benefit from reception conditions that respond to their protection needs”, and demanded that “dignified reception for migrants be the norm, not the exception.”

The future legislators were also asked to “guarantee access to rights, to allow immediate access to care for all, and to take to the national and political level the ambition of a dignified reception for all.”

The letter of appeal stressed that the living conditions of asylum seekers and refugees in France, and in particular in the Paris region, “are alarming and illustrate the insufficiency of our reception and integration policies”, and how associations that unconditionally accompany the exiles are the ones who must fill the gaps in the absence of public policies.

This lack of material reception conditions, a right of asylum seekers in France, led to a sentence against the State by the European Court of Human Rights for inhuman and degrading treatment in July 2021.

In order avoid this situation, the associations asked for the recognition of rights for asylum seekers and refugees, such as health, accommodation, education or access to work, among others, as well as the training and necessary resources for those who work with these displaced people such as the staff health and social services, local authorities or the police.

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