France. “Favelas on the edge of the territory”: why summer crystallizes tensions between mayors and travelers
The summer soap opera plays its new episode every year. Laneuvelotte (Meurthe-et-Moselle), Yssingeaux (Haute-Loire), Rumilly (Haute-Savoie), Mothern (Bas-Rhin)… The scene changes almost every day, the cast does not move: travelers looking to settle in on one side, mayors under tension on the other. The Association of Mayors of France (AMF) called at the end of July for “national mediation” by asking the State to coordinate “the great passages”, these summer religious processions numbering between 50 and 200 caravans.
“Every year, municipalities are faced with the arrival of large numbers of Travelers without having the means to cope. Mayors are regularly attacked,” points out the AMF. Some of them were reassured by the adoption of the Ripost law, which aims to facilitate the expulsion of Travelers illegally occupying land.
Summer congestion caused by lack of places?
Passed in 2000, the Besson law requires municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants to provide a reception area and a high-traffic area, or to organize themselves on an intercommunity scale. However, according to a report from the interministerial delegation for accommodation and access to housing, of the 346 prescribed major passage areas, only 230 were available as of December 31, 2024. This lack of places can explain the summer congestion, even if the problem also extends to the rest of the year. “The authorities favor reaction over anticipation,” laments Sasha Zanko, administrator within the national association of traveling citizens. If the law were respected, it would solve most of the illegal parking. »
The departments, responsible for distributing reception structures within the municipalities of their territory according to a specific plan, were only twelve in 2024 to have respected their roadmap. However, the routes for major passages are planned well in advance, but that is not enough. “We sent more than a thousand letters to the municipalities in December to ask for authorization to stop: we only had 18% of responses, including 12% acceptance,” says Martine Serlinger, delegate of the national international gypsy social association and member of the Grand Passages association. Of the rare positive responses, more than half of the land is a type of parking lot. Obviously this poses a problem and the groups settle elsewhere. »
“The areas are the creepiest places in the Republic”
The Housing Foundation estimates that around 177,000 Travelers suffer from poor housing in France. Faced with this reality, the mayor of Libourne Philippe Buisson (ex-PS), pleads for an overhaul of the reception method. “The areas are the most gloomy places in the Republic, we can no longer produce favelas on the edge of the territory,” despairs the councilor, who co-chaired an AMF working group on the subject.
He calls for the generalization of family rental land, a system allowing nomadic travelers to settle with their caravan on land containing permanent amenities, with a system of sanctions to force elected officials to build them. By the end of 2024, 355 family rental plots have been created, i.e. 1,734 places created out of nearly 8,400 places planned.
