PARIS — Hundreds of undocumented migrants stormed the Panthéon monument on Friday, demanding that the French government pay more attention to their plight and grant them legal status.

The protesters, many of whom were from West Africa, called themselves “Black Vests,” an allusion to the recent anti-government “Yellow Vests” protests. They surged the memorial in the early afternoon, where luminaries such as Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Simone Veil, champions of human rights, are buried.

Occupying the memorial for a couple of hours, they sat peacefully under the monument’s dome, waving papers and chanting, “Black Vests, Blacks Vests” and “Solidarity with migrants.”

“We are undocumented, the voiceless and faceless of the French Republic,” read a leaflet shared by La Chapelle Debout!, an advocacy organization for migrants and refugees. “We come to the graveyards of your great men to denounce your desecration.”

As France has grappled with an increasing number of asylum requests in recent years, it has closed its border with Italy, fought illegal immigration in cities like Calais and adopted tougher policies against migrants. Yet studies show that immigration issues remain a top concern among the French, just as they do in other Western European countries like Germany or Italy.

The situation has been tense in France’s largest cities. Since the immigration crisis of 2015, Paris has been struggling to house migrants, who live in appalling conditions in the northern and eastern parts of the city, where there are not enough shelters. “The situation is unacceptable,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris, said in April.

The protesters — many of whom live in the Paris region in migrant shelters, in precarious hotels or on the streets — have staged other protests during the past few months.

In May, hundreds of “Black Vests” protesters occupied a terminal at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport to denounce the “collaboration of Air France” in the repatriation of undocumented migrants to their countries of origin. In June, they stormed the entrance hall of a catering services group in the financial district of Paris, claiming that the company, Elior, exploited undocumented migrants.

The post Hundreds of Undocumented Migrants Occupy Panthéon Monument in Paris first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Hundreds of illegal migrants occupied the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in France, preventing people from boarding their flights and demanding to speak to Emmanuel Macron’s prime minister, Edouard Philippe.

“France does not belong to the French! Everyone has a right to be here!” yelled one of the migrants, organised by the pro-migration La Chapelle Debout group, through a loudspeaker, as they pressed for their presence in the country to be regularized.

Calling themselves “Black Vests” in a homage — of sorts — to the Yellow Vests who have been protesting Emmanuel Macron for months, the migrants also demanded Air France “stop any financial, material, logistical or political participation in deportations” in a statement published on Facebook.

Le Parisien reported that Paris Charles de Gaulle, the largest international airport in France, and second-largest in the European Union behind Britain’s London Heathrow, was targeted because of its proximity to an administrative detention centre in nearby Mesnil-Amelot (Seine-et-Marne), where illegal aliens are held prior to their expulsion from the country.

Air France, which the Black Vests denounced as the “official deporter of the French state”, did send a delegation to treat with the migrants’ representatives, and promised to “report their grievances to the management”.

The airline declined to comment on the incident to the media, however, referring reporters to the police prefecture.

Illegal migrants appear to have little fear of reprisals for such actions, with hundreds having conducted a similar protest demanding regularisation outside the Paris police quarters in January, according to Le Parisien.

They were even more brazen in 2018, storming the historic Basilica of Saint-Denis, which holds the tombs of many of France’s kings, alongside anti-borders left-wingers, forcing clergymen to cancel a Catholic mass and remaining in situ until the authorities forcibly ejected them from the premises.

National populist leader Marine Le Pen condemned the seeming involvement of left-wing politicians in the demonstration, blasting that, “By calling migrants to desecrate the Basilica of St. Denis, Necropolis of our Kings… the far-left show that, in their immigrationist madness, they are ready to trample our civilisation and desecrate a place of historical worship.”

The post Watch: ‘France does not belong to the French!’ – Hundreds of illegal migrants occupy French airport first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.