France expects to receive up to 100,000 refugees from conflict in Ukraine

The French government has indicated that it is anticipating the possible arrival in the coming weeks of "50,000, maybe 100,000" people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine and that it is preparing to change  its existing plans to take into account the increased estimates.

Refugees fleeing the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine wait for hours to board a train to Poland, outside the train station in Lviv, Ukraine, March 8, 2022. © KAI PFAFFENBACH/REUTERS

Of the more than 2.1 million refugees due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began on 24 February, France had received more than 7,200 people by Thursday, according to interior ministry figures.

But "we are trying to be ready for volumes that are likely to be much more significant in the days or weeks to come," Joseph Zimet, coordinator of the inter-ministerial crisis cell (CIC), told a press conference at the interior ministry after the cell's first meeting.

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"We have to anticipate in order to be ready to receive 50,000, maybe 100,000 refugees," he said.

"We have to prepare, plan, organise, regulate the system and already identify the accommodation capacities" to be able to receive them, he explained.

After a "first wave" of people fleeing Ukraine who "joined people in Europe" because they had relatives there, "we are anticipating a second and third wave of people who will be more destitute refugees" and who will be less able to rely on accommodation with their relatives, Zimet  said.

 "There will be new approaches to develop, a huge amount of planning to do."