Saturday, February 22nd. Hundreds of clandestine immigrants, members of the "Troisième Collectif des Sans Papiers", created during the long occupation of the church Saint Bernard in Summer 1996, occupied the church Saint-Jean Baptiste de Belleville. Some 200 of them spent the night in the church with their families before being brutally awakened by the arrival of massive police forces who forced the door.
The occupants, mostly Chinese, left the church without any further incidents.