2023-07-22 09:00:00
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REPORTING. The Italian border town welcomes a continuous flow of men and women ready to do anything to reach other European countries via France.
By Quentin Raverdy, Special Envoy to Ventimiglia (Italy) In Ventimiglia (Italy), January 20, 2023, migrants line up to enter the Caritas reception center for a meal. © Frédéric Pasquini/Hans Lucas via AFP Published on 07/22/2023 at 09:00
Friday in Ventimiglia is market day. In this Italian city close to Menton, French is the dominant language between the stalls. “We almost only meet cross-border commuters, so much so that we can’t even park,” grumbles a local retiree. With the French, it’s “I love you, me neither,” he admits. “We certainly have a lot of exchanges and tourists, but it is also because of you that we have to wrestle with all these migrants”, launches the sixty-year-old before resuming, without resentment, the course of his walk.
Before 2015, “everything was rather simple”, recalls Cristian Papini, local manager of the Caritas association, the Italian Catholic Relief Service: “People then arrived in Ventimiglia by the last train and left by the first of…
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