France
Médecins Sans Frontières continues to assist migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in mainland France. We also responded to a cholera outbreak and a cyclone in the Mayotte archipelago in 2024.
Our activities in 2024 —
outpatient consultations
individual mental health consultations
In Pantin, a suburb of Paris, we provide multidisciplinary support, comprising medical, psychological, social, and legal assistance, for unaccompanied minors at our day centre. From July 2024, we started to focus particularly on unaccompanied girls and their specific needs, at both the day centre and the accommodation where we offer shelter to people in vulnerable situations.
In Marseille, we also provide shelter and the same range of support services for unaccompanied minors with medical vulnerabilities in an 18-bed house. In April 2024, in collaboration with other organisations, we opened a new day centre in the city, where unaccompanied minors who live in precarious conditions or on the streets can get a little respite and receive medical consultations.
In Calais, northern France, we welcomed unaccompanied minors at our day centre, offering them medical and psychological support and inviting them to participate in psychosocial activities. Our teams and volunteers also conducted medical and psychological consultations for people living in camps, through mobile clinics. During the winter months, we arranged emergency shelter for children, women, and families, to prevent them from being forced to sleep outside in harsh weather conditions.
Between May and August, MSF responded to a cholera epidemic in the French archipelago of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, by supporting local organisations with health promotion sessions and training on diarrhoeal diseases. Our teams also conducted water and sanitation activities in several informal urban settlements to reduce the risk of disease. In December, Cyclone Chido hit Mayotte, causing widespread destruction and destitution. In response, we launched emergency activities, assisting people living in informal settlements. We set up mobile clinics in several villages, and supplied clean water by rehabilitating a water catchment point and installing a chlorination tank.