Makeshift camps of tents along the banks of the canal St Martin are familiar sight to many Parisians and in Paris alone the cold weather has caused the deaths of three homeless people in little more than a week. Sadly on average more than a hundred homeless people die from the cold each year in France so these deaths won't be the last this winter.

According to figures recently released by DAL Droit Au Logement there are over 2,840,743 people in France who are either homeless sans-abri or living in extremely inadequate 'housing'. In Paris the situation is exasperated by a higher than average number of evictions from rented accommodation and the large number of immigrants that the city attracts.

Two years ago Nicolas Sarkozy promised that there would be no more homeless people living on the streets of France by the end of 2008 but tragically little has changed on the homeless front. In Paris the homeless are often out of sight and out of mind making temporary camps along the banks of the canal St Martin and also in the bois de Vincennes a large park in the east of the city. The video below (in French) is a news report from the bois de Vincennes.



Surprisingly the situation has spread to students attending universities in Paris where many find that they are unable to afford the high rents required for accommodation in the city. A growing number of students are forced into living in dangerous squats often without power or sanitation as the video below reports (in English).



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