La demande d’asile à Lyon : flux européens et centralités urbaines

Abstract

The following article deals with the issue of asylum seekers, their migration routes within Europe and the areas they are to be found in cities. This case study will focus on the urban area of Lyon, France. Geographic tools and methods enable us to analyze these migratory trends while taking into account several overlapping space-time scales, but also the experience of asylum seekers, and the contradictions sticking to the arrival point. We will first study the asylum seekers' migratory routes from 1994 to 2005. These people mostly go from Eastern to Western Europe, even though they may come from various countries and regions. We will then analyze the case of refugee reception centers and provisional accommodation centers in Lyon, as new urban centralities begin to unfold around them. We will eventually shed light on asylum seeker mobility within the urban area. As "urban nomads", asylum seekers are led to "take possession" of some public spaces, turning them into urban hot spots, as shown in the 2000s by the example of the Place Carnot, a public square in the heart of Lyon.

Keywords

• asylum seeker
• Europe
• international mobility
• migratory movement
• social accommodation centre
• public space