24 Heures, Fre - Jean-Claude Mermoud, Vaud director for institutions and external relations, is not hiding his impatience with citizens' expectations following the vote in Bex Sunday to close the Fareas refugee centre. Mermoud told 24 Heures in an interview that the centre cannot be closed immediately for a variety of administrative reasons, that it will take a few weeks to find alternative housing. The solution, he argues, does not lie in a smaller refugee centre but rather in separating the 20 or so refugees who pose a problem from the other 80 and putting the first group in a kind of camp.
Mermoud had firm words for the canton's communes, saying that if they start refusing to house refugees Vaud would have no alternative but to follow Bern's footsteps and impose groups on the towns.