Abstract
The sans-papiers1 movement has been one of the major features of the contemporary political debate over immigration in France, highlighting the specific situation of those residing “illegally” in France, and organizing to resist the attempts of successive governments to expel “illegal” residents from their territory. Worldwide media attention was drawn to the situation of the sans-papiers in 1996 when the government ordered special police forces to break down the doors of a church in Paris to expel those sanspapiers who had been staging a hunger strike inside. This expulsion and the media coverage it attracted served to mobilize both other immigrants finding themselves in a situation of illegality, and parts of the French population who rallied to the support of the sans-papiers, with a series of demonstrations and public petitions ensuing. This key moment in the recent history of immigration in France symbolized both the determination of the French state to refuse to grant rights to those who were believed to be residing illegally on its territory and also to expel those illegal 2 immigrants wherever possible, and at the same time the political mobilization both of the immigrant population and their French supporters to resist this categorization of illegality. Current immigration policies that encourage the police to reach targets of illegal immigrants to expel from France have been built on this criminalization 3 of the sans-papiers and securitization of the immigration issues.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
For an analysis of the way in which immigrants have been criminalized in Europe and the United States, see, e.g., Michael Welch and Liza Schuster, “Detention of Asylum Seekers in the UK, France, Germany and Italy: A Critical View of the Globalizing Culture of Control,” Criminal Justice 5, no. 4 (2005): 331–55.
J. Simeant, La cause des sans-papiers (Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1998).
E. Balibar, “Le droit de cité ou l’apartheid?” in Sans-papiers: l’archaïsme fatal, eds. E. Balibar, M. Chemillier-Gendreau, J. Costa-Lascoux, and E. Terray (Paris: La Découverte, 1999), 89–110.
M. Sané, Sorti de l’Ombre. Journal d’un Sans-papiers (Paris: Le Temps des Cerises, 1996), 45.
M. Cissé, Parole de sans-papiers! (Paris: La Dispute, 1999), 116.
M. Cissé, “Sans-papiers: les premiers enseignements,” Politique la revue 2 (1996): 9–14.
E. Terray, “La lutte des sans-papiers, la démocratie et l’Etat de droit,” in Les lois de l’ inhospitalité: Les politiques de l’ immigration à l’ épreuve des sans-papiers, eds. D. Fassin, A. Morice and C. Quiminal (Paris: La Découverte, 1997), 249.
The notion of “chosen” immigration has been a key to Sarkozy’s immigration policy, which aims to ensure a far greater control over who should enter France, and to allow only those who will play a useful economic role to immigrate. This contrast between chosen and “suffered” immigration is demonstrated in the new loi Hortefeux (see note 4 earlier), which imposes much stricter conditions on family reunification, but which at the same time allows a possibility of regularization of illegal immigrants who are doing “useful” work within France.
Claimants whose claim is treated in a priority procedure do not have the same rights to housing or benefits as other asylum claimants, and their claim should be treated more rapidly by the French authorities.
The notion of “safe” countries has been adopted by all European countries in order to be able to deal rapidly with asylum claims where the claimant comes from a country of origin deemed to be “safe,” i.e., to have no state sanctioned persecution or discrimination. The notion of safe countries has been highly criticized by human rights groups, however, who point to the various different human rights abuses that may still take place even in these countries deemed to be safe.
The use of the word “raf les” to refer to these roundups of sans-papiers by the police is controversial in that it is it the same word used to denote the roundups of Jews by the Vichy police during World War II.
C. Vanneroy, “Comment est mise en oeuvre la circulaire du 13 juin 2006 relative aux sans-papiers? L’exemple de Paris,” TERRA-Editions, Collection Synthèses, 2006. http://terra.rezo.net/article552.html.
M. Keck, and K. Sikkink, “Transnational Advocacy Networks in International and Regional Politics,” International Social Science Journal 51, no. 159 (1999): 89–101.
J. Freedman, “The Réseau Education Sans Frontières: A New Form of Collective Action?” paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, September 5–8, 2007, Pisa.
C.-V. Marie, 988, “Entre économie et politique: le ‘clandestin,’ une figure sociale à géométrie variable,” Pouvoirs 47 (1988): 91.
D. Fassin and A. Morice, “Les épreuves de l’irregularité: les sans-papiers entre déni d’existence et reconquête d’un statut,” in Exclusions au coeur de la Cité, ed. D. Schnapper (Paris: Economica, 2001), 260–309.
N. Ferré, “La production de l’irregularité,” in Les lois de l’ inhospitalité: les politiques de l’ immigration à l’ épreuve des sans-papiers, eds. D. Fassin, A. Morice, and C. Quiminal (Paris: La Découverte, 1997), 47–64.
A. Sayad, L’ immigration ou les paradoxes de l’alterité (Brussels: De Broek, 1991).
G. Noiriel, Le creuset français. Histoire de l’ immigration XIX-XX siècles (Paris: Le Seuil, 1988).
C. Péchu, “Quand les « exclus » passe à l’action. La mobilisation des mal-logés,” Politix 9, no. 34 (1996): 114–33.
E. Reyanaud, “Le militantisme moral,” in La sagesse et le désordre, ed. H. Mendras (Paris: Gallimard, 1980), 271–86.
I. Sommier, Le renouveau des mouvements contestataires à l’ heure de la mondialisation (Paris: Flammarion, 2003).
L. Mathieu, La double peine. Histoire d’une lutte inachevée (Paris: La Dispute, 2006).
L. Israel, “Faire emerger le droit des étrangers en le contestant, ou l’histoire paradoxale des premières années du GISTI,” Politix 16, no. 62 (2003): 115–43.
J. Freedman and C. Tarr, eds., Women, Immigration and Identities in France (Oxford: Berg, 2000).
J. Freedman, Immigration and Insecurity in France (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).
A. Mary and L. Schulmann, “Cachan: diviser pour mieux éloigner?” Plein Droit 71 (2006): 10–12.
C. Lloyd, “Rendez-vous manqués: feminisms and anti-racisms in France,” Modern and Contemporary France 6, no. 1 (1998): 61–74.
Fassin and Morice, “Les épreuves de l’irregularité.”
J. Ion, S. Franguiadakis, and P. Viot, Militer aujourd’ hui (Paris: Autrement, 2005).
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2008 Wendy Pojmann
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Freedman, J. (2008). The French “Sans-Papiers” Movement: An Unfinished Struggle. In: Pojmann, W. (eds) Migration and Activism in Europe Since 1945. Europe in Transition: The NYU European Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615540_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615540_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37302-4
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61554-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)