BM85: Requisition of student accommodation for national and international sport events

As you may know, the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2024 will be held in Paris, France.

With a clear lack of preparation, the French government imposed on thousands of students to leave their public housing for summer 2024 to accommodate its staff instead. Students would be relocated in accommodations they did not choose and do not know yet.

This is considered, for the French government, as a national effort, that will be the pride of students, a statement that FAGE do not share and strongly rejects. The lack of preparation of the government for the Olympic and Paralympic Games should not oblige students to move out from their house, compromising their studies and their daily life.

Indeed, the public student accommodations are managed by the Regional Centres for University and Scholar Charities (CROUS). The CROUS took this decision under the pressure of the French government, leading the students concerned out of their housing by next summer with a mere compensation : 100€ and two tickets for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Following a referral, the Administrative Court of Paris suspended this decision as a matter of urgency. Many legal irregularities have appeared, accompanied by a total lack of consideration for the social situation of each student and their rights. Those conditions led the Court to oblige the State to find an urgent legal solution.

The Court also reminded the State that those decisions only depends on the CROUS, not on the Government, via the action of its board. Students are now in the wait for a decision from the Court, referred to again by the CROUS. Students representatives are afraid that this referral is based on the pressure put by the Government on the CROUS’s administration and not on a true will on their part.

This situation is far from what the CROUS originally announced. Firstly, the switch of accommodation was supposed to be on a voluntary basis. Students do not have a choice. Secondly, the psychological support promised by the CROUS is yet to be known. This matter is even more concerning as this proposal to switch accommodations for the students concerned is based on an hypothetical number of students leaving their accommodations for the summer. The CROUS counts on this hypothesis to determine if they are indeed able to relocate the students whose accommodations will be used for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Relocating students should not be based on an hypothetical solution.

Moreover, this decision is even more questionable since the pressure on the student accommodation in Ile-de-France has already reached rates never reached before. The access to those accommodations is based on the analysis of students’ social and financial situations.

Thus, the students in the Parisian accommodations are already the ones with the most precarious social situations. The burden put on those students adds to their precariousness, both mentally and financially. Indeed, if they are relocated, this new location could be farther from their workplace or from their internship and could increase their transportation and food expenses that 100€ would not compensate.

Overall, the application’s details of this decision are blurry. More importantly, the Government is crossing its power boundaries, despite the decision of the Court. On no ground the relocation of students in public accommodations is acceptable in such circumstances. The well-being of the staff of the Olympic and Paralympic Games should not compromise the well-being of its students and other fitting solutions should be found by the French government and the Ministry of Sports, Olympic and Paralympic Games.

FAGE thus condemns the action of the French government who increases the precariousness of its most vulnerable students. Those actions are in opposition to the values of sport events as the ones held by the Olympic and Paralympic Games and student representatives through France calls the Government to be more involved for its youth.

This action is against the values of the European Higher Education Area. It challenges the capacity of the most vulnerable students to access to proper housing. Thus, the Olympic and Paralympic Games being an international event, FAGE calls for support from its international counterparts and wants to be certain that such a situation will not be repeated.

No international or national sport event should led to the relocation of unwilling students and compromise their well-being and their studies.

Proposers: FAGE

Seconders: CREUP, FAIRe, UDU, VSS-UNES-USU, fzs, FEF, ÖH, UNEL