Two years of war in Ukraine: housing, employment, integration… what is the situation of refugees in the region ?

Arriving in 2022, Karyna and her mother Yara settled in Nîmes and Uzès. Midi Libre – SYLVIE CAMBON

More than six million displaced people in Europe, now less than 100,000 in France: two years after the start of the conflict, many Ukrainian refugees are facing obstacles linked to housing, language, and poorly recognized qualifications.&nbsp ;

An endless exodus, for two years, since the first Russian missiles hit the country's civilians all the way to the heart of kyiv. According to Filipo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, nearly 10 million Ukrainians have fled their homes, between 3 and 4 million inside the country, 6.3 millions abroad.

Some have since been tempted to return to see their families, 1.2 million people according to the UN, including 900,000 for more than three months. While the stagnation of the conflict does not allow these exiles to build solid plans for returning home, the temporary protection policy applied by the European Union provides them with accommodation and, most often, employment. to survive far from home.

Less than 70,000 still displaced in France

With 1.3 million displaced people, Germany has become the leading host country ahead of Poland. According to numerous figures, France seems to be the EU country which has recorded the fewest arrivals as a percentage of its population, with around 70,000 displaced currently, down after a peak at 115,000 a year ago.

More than 4000 displaced in former Languedoc-Roussillon

Difficult to establish precisely the number of displaced Ukrainians in the region because, as the Hérault Prefecture reminds us, "these nationals are free to move around the territory after regularization of their situation with the prefectures , and not all are followed within the framework of accommodation schemes managed by the State."

Nevertheless, the latest figures show around 4,300 displaced people in former Languedoc-Roussillon (compared to 5,000 a year ago) and 521 in Aveyron. According to estimates and requests from APS, nn thousand displaced people are present in Gard and PO and nearly 1,500 in Hérault.

Temporary protection automatically gives them the right to a temporary residence permit (APS) which they must renew every six months at the prefecture and which gives them the right to work and access to a job seeker's allowance. ;#39;asylum (ADA) of 14 euros per day. But this system excludes them from RSA and most social benefits. Many of them, housed in the countryside or in villages, without a car, found themselves cut off from the world and from employment.

New life in Uzès for Yara

This was the case of Yara, who arrived from Nosivka, near the Belarusian border, with her three children to settle in the Gard, near Uzès , at Valérie Laversin, a magistrate from Nîmes. Despite the warmth of the welcome, Yara confided in us about her integration difficulties a year ago. His daughter Karyna, a law and documentation student, continued her classes remotely while struggling with low morale. 

A sign of the integration that is taking its toll, Karyna has now settled in Nîmes with a boyfriend and is taking French lessons. Yara, the mother, found an apartment in Uzès "very pretty, like the city, and great for the children" but still needs to perfect her French. Léo, the youngest, will change schools and Bogdan (17 years old) will join the Establishment for Employment Integration in La Grand Combe,' ;nbsp;a public body  which welcomes young people between 17 and 25 without employment or qualifications into boarding schools and helps them enter the job market. For him, a rapid return to Ukraine is excluded, otherwise he would very quickly be mobilized to the front.

"We saw host families who lost their temper"

Another effect of exile, Yara divorced her husband who remained in the country. She wants "to stay in France" and is looking for a job but has given up for the moment on finding l& ;#39;equivalent to his qualification as a bank manager, like many Ukrainian women who most often fall back on positions in the hotel industry, home help, Restoration. A waste when a 5th of the displaced people arriving in France have the bac + 5 level.

Over time, the momentum of solidarity and welcome, particularly among individuals, has also worn down on the difficulties of cohabitation. "Many families were volunteers but we saw some who lost their temper amid tensions, despite the translators",confirms Jean-Pierre Mahé, member of the Entraide Ukraine association, north of Hérault. It must be said that the forty displaced people welcomed in the sector were all deaf, housed in Saint-Mathieu-de-Tréveils and Assas.

For Emilia, the baccalaureate in Narbonne and a scholarship for the United States

"The experience was great but the mobilization ended up weakening because it was purely associative and communal, we didn' We have never been helped by the communities. The people accommodated ended up being ventilated elsewhere, regrets Jean-Pierre Mahé. For those from Assas, the departure took place ;#39;is done overnight, in a brutal manner." The sustainability of housing remains the big problem but another will arise in a year like the number of displaced& ;nbsp;will reach the three-year mark, the maximum set for temporary protection.

In this magma of very disparate stories, a pretty fairy tale: the journey of Emilia, arriving from Kiev with her sister and her grandmother and housed in staff accommodation at the Lycée Louise-Michel in Narbonne, thanks to an agreement with the Region, the high school and the Narbonne Ukraine association. Having completed her baccalaureate with good honors, Emilia won a scholarship to continue her studies in the United States, at the University of Minnesota. The war has not yet shattered all dreams.