France and Morocco Struggle to Address Unaccompanied Migrant Children Crisis

A few days ago, King Mohammed VI announced his willingness to "definitively settle" the problem of unaccompanied Moroccan minors in France. This week, it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that has emphasized the "common will" of Morocco and France to "best deal with this difficult issue". And yet, on the ground, the picture of the support and care of these young Moroccans in France is still bleak, reports Cnews.

Last summer, the association Médecins sans frontière (MSF) denounced "the indifference of the public authorities", especially in terms of housing minors, although the law has provided that any foreign or non-foreign minor person must be protected. However, we observe from the Goutte d’Or (18th), in the north of the capital, to the upscale neighborhoods of the Trocadéro (16th), that these young people are often on the street. Thus, they engage in delinquency to survive or fall into drug addiction.

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It is in this sense that Le Monde published on June 4 a narrative that traces how a team of child psychiatrists from the Debré hospital in Paris is trying to "repair these children" who have become dependent on a powerful anxiolytic, called Rivotril. "The idea is to substitute for their dealer and gradually bring them back to common law," said psychiatrist Emmanuelle Peyret, head of a specialized addiction unit for children.

Still to find solutions to this problem, six months ago, the mayor of the 18th arrondissement of Paris, Eric Lejoindre, sent a note to the government to mainly demand the creation of "dedicated structures to support these young people and extract them from an environment that is destroying them". He is still waiting for a response.