William Acker’s research on reception areas

In 2021, William Acker published Où sont les « gens du voyage » ? Inventaire critique des aires d’accueil with Editions du commun. The lawyer, from a family of travelers, listed these areas of relegation, intended for a historically discriminated population, forced to stay there. His conclusion was that these places are mainly located near polluted sites, presenting risks to the health of the inhabitants.

Worsening conditions for travelers

Five years later, the living conditions on these sites have further deteriorated due to climate change and those who continue to move see their mobility restricted by the increase in fuel prices. The dedicated spaces are also too few, forcing many travelers to settle illegally, with, in the background, the permanent risk of eviction.

Acker’s new book on environmental racism

William Acker continues his reflection in a second book, Racisme environnemental. Penser la convergence depuis la lutte contre l’antitsiganisme (Editions du commun, September 2026), where he calls for the use of environmental justice to create "alliances between anti-racist, ecological and social struggles." Basta! asked Acker about using the concept of environmental racism to describe what the travelers are experiencing today in France.

Origins of the environmental racism concept

Acker explained that the concept allows linking the racial condition in a given space and the environmental inequalities suffered by people. It is a hypothesis formulated in the 1980s in the United States by activists, researchers and authors mainly black, such as Benjamin Chavis, Robert Bullard, Hazel Johnson or Dollie Burwell. This concept of environmental racism gave rise to a much broader movement, which is that of environmental justice.

Environmental racism in French territories

In the French "ultramarian" territories, this concept has been mobilized for several years now, notably in Martinique and Guadeloupe, regarding the chlordécone scandal. But in mainland France, under the guise of universalism, there has been a tendency to ignore the racist mechanisms: the relationship between racial assignment and environmental inequalities has only recently been integrated by environmental movements.

Clear link to environmental racism

In the case of travelers, this link is absolutely clear, since it is a question of populations historically discriminated against, subjected for several centuries to exceptional laws - for example, the circulation books, which had succeeded the anthropometric notebooks introduced in 1912, existed until 2017. These populations are now relegated to reception areas, in dedicated spaces, apart from others, whose location is decided by territorial collectivities and approved by the State through prefects.

Reception areas near polluted sites

And these places are systematically located next to polluted sites. We therefore have all the criteria of environmental racism. In his previous book, Acker made an inventory of these reception areas. The work revealed that more than half of the reception areas are located in direct proximity to environmental nuisances.

Scientific studies confirm findings

These conclusions have since been confirmed by two studies: one published in 2022, by the National Federation of Solidarity Associations for Action with the Tsiganes and the "gens du voyage" (Fnasat); the other in 2025, by the National Institute for Agricultural Research, Food and the Environment (Inrae). These reception areas are located near landfills, waste disposal sites, sewage treatment plants.

Health impacts on travelers

The impact of this relegation on the health of travelers includes exposure to chronic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, and saturnism, with one out of two travelers exposed to a lead level that is too high. Also cancers, although it is often difficult to prove a direct causal relationship between these diseases and the environment of the reception areas, especially when the people are itinerant.

Mental health and environmental stress

Travelers are finally exposed to mental health problems and depression, especially related to the stress caused by the risk of eviction to which many are subjected, and to the situation of residential instability in which they find themselves. A 2024 study by Santé publique France on the health of travelers in Nouvelle-Aquitaine clearly shows the link between environmental damage and the impact on their health.

Legal gaps and policy neglect

There is now a sufficiently thick bundle of scientific indicators to say that the living conditions of travelers have a very harmful impact on their health: their life expectancy is up to 15 years lower than the national average. The legislation allows the installation of reception areas near sites presenting health risks due to the silence of the law. And, the law being the reflection of policy, if the law does not provide for anything, it is because the policy is indifferent to the problem.

Vulnerability to climate change

This indifference is deliberate: the alerts and scientific evidence have been accumulating for a long time but the legislator does not take up the subject. Some legal perspectives remain open, notably the ordering of regulations on ICPE: today, reception areas are not considered as establishments that receive the public, so they are not protected as such.

Climate risks in reception areas

A reception area, in the law, is a parking lot. There is nevertheless an urgency to rethink these areas and their location, especially because they make travelers extremely vulnerable to climate change. Travelers are vulnerable at multiple levels. They are exposed to climatic hazards simply by the low protection offered by the caravan.

Exacerbated by poor planning

But this problem could be partly solved if the grounds were properly developed. Except that these places are defined without taking into account the risks: some reception areas are thus located in floodable areas. The risks related to heatwaves are not also integrated: on the areas, there is very little shade and little or no cool areas.

Health risks from heat

Everything is concrete, asphalted. This has an impact on the health of the residents. And notably that of the most vulnerable: the elderly, people with disabilities and the youngest suffer greatly from heatwaves. This vulnerability is compounded by other inequalities since travelers have enormous difficulties in insuring their caravans.

Legal and environmental challenges

No national device allows responding to the refusals of insurers. So we are faced with people doubly punished, who have to assume entirely on their own the climatic hazards and natural disasters. In fact, adaptation to climate change has not been thought through at all.

Legal action against the state

And that is why the National Association of Travelers Citizens (ANGVC) joined an action in court alongside Greenpeace France, Oxfam France and Notre affaire à tous, attacking the French state in 2025 for failure to protect all citizens from the consequences of climate change.

Exclusion in rural areas

Travelers are also excluded from large parts of the territory, especially in rural areas. The Besson II law introduced in 2000 a threshold of 5,000 inhabitants above which the communes are required to provide reception areas. However, only about 5% of French communes have more than 5,000 inhabitants.

Historical exclusion in rural areas

Entire areas therefore become exclusion zones. In rural areas, the logics aimed at expelling travelers have always existed. Many archives document the "plague" of wandering bands of nomads, gypsies, etc. However, with a certain ambiguity, travelers have always been workers in the rural world.

Environmental law used to exclude

Some were merchants and brought manufactured products or services to agricultural areas; others were, and continue to be, agricultural workers, or even now, agricultural landowners for some of them. Although solidarities exist, this phenomenon of relegation is today aggravated in rural areas by the economic issues related to land exploitation and agro-industry.

Manure as exclusion tool

One can take the example of the spreading of manure by some farmers on their land to prevent "people of the journey" from settling there - when they do not spread it directly on the travelers! In 2023, the Departmental Federation of Agricultural Workers' Unions (FDSEA) of Île-de-France had carried out such an operation, called "Let's reclaim our lands."

Institutional support for exclusion

And these practices today align with institutional logics. I think particularly of the rationalization of urban planning and environmental law, which has come to offer tools to expel travelers from the agricultural world. Justly, you write that it also happens that "ecology is instrumentalized in favor of a racial relegation logic."

Ecology as exclusionary tool

How does this materialize? I take an example: I was recently contacted by CGT-Environnement, which includes notably workers of the French Office for Biodiversity. As guardians of nature, they are sometimes charged with accelerating the procedures for expelling "people of the journey" installed on natural parcels.

Environmental law and exclusion

The problem is that we have reproached travelers so much for being polluters that, as soon as they settle in natural areas, their presence is perceived as pollution in itself. Sometimes, the practices of some travelers are indeed polluting. But we never ask how to frame, how to allow a harmonious coexistence.

Need for alternative solutions

The only question asked is always: how to prevent "people of the journey" from settling? On the ground, we also see how environmental law, notably measures such as the ZAN, can be instrumentalized by the collectivities to justify the absence of spaces intended for travelers.

Environmental justice and convergence

In the same way, when residents oppose the construction of a reception area, the ecological argument is very often mobilized. Sometimes completely legitimate, but it is necessary that alternative solutions be proposed in order to allow the reception of travelers.

Challenges of convergence

What is interesting is to see how, when one does not think of ecology in a perspective of environmental justice, it can become an instrument of exclusion of part of the population. In this context, what convergences are possible with the ecological movements?

Women leading the fight

They have however common interests with the travelers, notably the defense of the right to live in a healthy environment? The convergence, we see on the ground, can be made in a pragmatic way, on specific cases. But this requires working on solidarity with the travelers, training in the fight against antitsiganism.

Need for equity in movements

And therefore to go beyond the sole horizon of common interests - at the risk, otherwise, of seeing the exclusion logics renewed as soon as the fight is over. Within the organizations, if there are increasingly more anti-racist ecological collectives, it is also necessary to ensure - and it is perhaps the most difficult - to create democratic governance.

Including marginalized voices

Which, beyond the principles of equality, take into account the question of equity. How to integrate non-readers? How to overcome extremely difficult living conditions, which do not allow people to regularly participate in meetings? How to take into account the fact that the cost of the struggle, for the travelers, as for all socially vulnerable people, is often very high?

Mobilization by women

All these questions must be raised, whether within the ecological or anti-racist movements. In the meantime, travelers, and especially women, are mobilizing against environmental racism. Indeed, it is mainly women who rise against environmental racism.

Women-led environmental activism

One can mention notably the struggle of the Da So Vas collective, which has been led since 2012-2013 by the women of the reception area of Hellemmes-Ronchin. At the time, noticing the increase in respiratory diseases among their children, they made the link with the concrete factory adjacent to their reception area and which generates intense dust.

Challenges of gender and race

They then decided to create a women's collective, supported by the associative ecosystem. They then had the intelligence to go around all the reception areas of the metropolis and demonstrate the recurrence of pollutions. Women in struggle must however fight in parallel against a misogynistic oppression system.

Need for inclusive movements

In the traveling movements it is mainly men who speak and are recognized as legitimate interlocutors. It is one of the major challenges of our movements, which are gradually becoming "traveler" movements, calling for a deep mutation of our struggles. This ongoing evolution is a necessity.