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Death of 17 Immigrants in Paris Fire Prompts Broad Inquiry
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By KATRIN BENNHOLD
Published: August 27, 2005
PARIS, Aug. 26 - After a fire here killed 14 children and 3 adults
early Friday in a run-down apartment building packed with African
immigrants, French officials promised a systematic investigation of
similar temporary housing.
The fire was the second in four months to strike substandard housing in
Paris. In April, 24 people died in a similar blaze that brought new
attention to the plight of immigrants who live in overcrowded and
decrepit conditions while waiting sometimes for decades for subsidized
housing.
"It's an extremely heavy death toll," said Interior Minister Nicolas
Sarkozy, one of the first senior officials to arrive on the scene
Friday morning. Blaming overcrowding for the fire, he pledged a
thorough investigation of such buildings.
President Jacques Chirac issued a statement saying, "This dreadful
disaster plunges all of France into mourning."
The cause has not been officially determined. The fire broke out
shortly after midnight in a stairwell and took three hours to contain,
according to emergency officials.
Neighbors said that about 100 children and 30 adults were living in the
building, in the 13th Arrondissement, in southeastern Paris, most of
them from Mali, in West Africa. Twenty-three people were injured and
hospitalized, and others were given shelter in a sports complex.
Long after other survivors had been escorted away, Moussa Touré, 47,
remained, shaking his head and staring at the scorched third-floor
window of the apartment where he had lived since 1992.
Mr. Touré did not mourn for himself; his 2 wives and 13 children all
escaped, helped by firefighters who lifted them out of their smoke-
filled bedroom through the window.
He said he was thinking of his neighbor Dramane Diarra, another Malian,
who is hospitalized with serious injuries after jumping out of his
window to escape the flames. Mr. Diarra lost all six of his children in
the blaze, Mr. Touré said.
"It is so tragic," he said. "Yesterday they were still alive, and today
they are dead. Their lives are wasted."
Mr. Touré said he remembered the intense smell of smoke and the crying
of children clutching their parents and pressing wet cloths to their
faces. Then his voice turned bitter. "Why does it have to come to this
before anyone cares about what is going on here?" he said. "Our
problems didn't just start today."
The building is owned by the government and managed by the charity
France Europe Habitat. Its interior was described by residents and
neighbors as unbearable. Residents were told that they would be housed
here only provisionally, until city officials could find them permanent
subsidized apartments.
In Mr. Touré's case, that housing application has been pending for 13
years.
Jean-Claude Amara, a spokesman for Droits Devant, or Rights First, a
human rights advocacy group in Paris, said the building was inadequate
for long-term accommodation. "This house should never have been
anything but a very temporary interim solution," said Mr. Amara, who
said he had seen the interior of the building.
The insulation was inadequate, he said, there were problems with the
plumbing and the electricity, and the paint on the walls contained lead.
Official figures on the number of provisional housing facilities for
immigrants awaiting permanent state-subsidized accommodations were not
available on Friday. But Mr. Amara estimated there were hundreds of
such buildings.
Demands for subsidized housing have surged in the past decade.
According to the Paris city hall, 102,500 applications are pending,
compared with about 85,000 10 years ago. Last year, 100,000 applicants
competed for only 10,000 units.
Under Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, the pool of subsidized housing has
significantly increased, but it is still lagging behind demand. Today,
about 3,500 subsidized housing units are being added to the pool every
year, an increase of 125 percent compared with the years preceding Mr.
Delanoë's election in 2001.
The shortage has hit immigrants and poor French people alike as rents
in Paris continue to climb.
But immigrants, who tend to be poorer than French citizens, are more
likely to be in need of subsidized housing and often face the
additional difficulty of racial discrimination.
A study of access to public housing in 2001 found that only 58 percent
of applications by immigrants were successful after six months,
compared with 75 percent of nonimmigrants. The study, conducted by an
antidiscrimination group called GELD, was cited in Le Monde on Friday.
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