Ahead of the Paris Olympics, police clear a migrant camp near City Hall

By NICOLAS GARRIGA
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Paris police have evicted migrants from a makeshift tent camp next to City Hall, the latest clear-out that aid groups allege is a campaign of ’’social cleansing″ ahead of the Summer Olympics. In a pre-dawn operation, police woke around 100 teenage boys and young men from West Africa, telling them to pack their tents and belongings. Paris police said the operation was carried out for security reasons, notably because the tents were near schools. Migrant camps are commonly dismantled every spring in France with the end of a winter ’’truce″ that limits evictions and evacuations in cold weather. But aid groups say clear-outs are intensifying ahead of the Olympics in July.