“Those who tried to describe” the shipwrecked “, these men, these women of nothing who drag at our feet, almost all, we can help them” | EUROtoday

[Patrick Declerck, philosophe de formation, docteur en anthropologie, psychanalyste, a suivi les clochards parisiens pendant quinze ans, dans la rue, les gares, les foyers d’hébergement, au centre d’accueil et de soins hospitaliers de Nanterre, au SAMU social. En 1986, avec Médecins du monde, il a ouvert la première consultation d’écoute destinée aux SDF en France. Il en a tiré un livre-document qui a fait date, Les Naufragés. Avec les clochards de Paris, paru en 2001 dans la collection « Terre humaine » aux éditions Plon. A l’occasion des 70 ans de cette collection fondée et dirigée par le géographe Jean Malaurie (1922-2024), qui a renouvelé le récit ethnographique et le témoignage documentaire, le texte reparaît avec une nouvelle préface écrite par Patrick Declerck, dont nous proposons ici un extrait.]

My e book The shipwrecked was printed for the primary time in September 2001, now twenty-four years in the past. Is it so distant? Not actually, sadly. Of course, the road inhabitants has modified. Just browse cities to understand it. (…) The faces are not fairly the identical. Clodos now rub shoulders with different sisters and brothers in despair, however their sufferings stay similar.

How a lot are there to not have a roof for sleeping? The figures stay approximate as it’s troublesome to establish an deserted inhabitants. What can we are saying with out being too mistaken? (…) 30^e Report on the state of poor housing in France, made public in February 2025 by ex-Father Pierre-Foundation, renamed Foundation for the housing of deprived since revelations on the sexual assault dedicated by the priest, stories, in 2024, of 350,000 Sans-Domicile-Fixe. (…) Among them an growing proportion of girls, kids and foreigners. If we all the time see tramps in nice bodily and psychological ache, we now come throughout stateless individuals who rapidly swap to continual destitution. And this life on the road is clearly lethal. (…) Faced with this persistent and irreducible distress, 203,000 emergency locations can be found. This provide is clearly inadequate within the face of rising wants. Winter mobilizes typically typically, however summer time turns into a type of nice silence. Besides, summer time is proof, nothing occurs besides the vacations. Let’s keep premiums! Holidays for all!

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