French defy state child snatchers - network hides children of immigrants

[Al-khiyal]

Mothers' network hides young immigrants to keep them safe from deportation by Sarkozy:

The auditorium is packed. The children sit two to a seat, their parents beside them. Though not all understand the language, they pay careful attention to the rousing speeches. Then their surnames are called out - Aksan, al-Amara, Avongua, Awad, Ayad, Azhar, Azed, on to Zaman, Zachihivilli, Zuheri - and they stand up to meet those who will sponsor, help and, if it comes to it, defy the full force of the French state to hide them.

The children, recent immigrants or the children of recent immigrants, are among tens of thousands in France who are, according to the Ministry of the Interior, liable for expulsion or who will become liable when they reach the age of 18.

For the moment they are safe, but on 30 June, the end of the school year, a de facto truce declared by the maverick right-wing politician and Interior Minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, will expire. Then they will be picked up by police and immigration services and deported. Around the hall, a council building in the run-down Paris suburb of Bobigny, the children's 'sponsors', all French citizens, wait to be introduced to their charges.

All over France this week similar scenes will be repeated as a national network of volunteers mobilises. According to Jean-Michel Delabre, an activist with Education sans Frontières (ESF), the battle is about more than just the future of several thousand youngsters. 'This is a fight for the soul of France and for the sort of society we want to live in,' he told The Observer. 'Do we want our country to be tolerant and multicultural? Or xenophobic and closed?'

One of the toughest battles is being fought in the western port of Brest where, for months, a six-year-old Dagestani girl called Sakimat Amiralieva has been hidden from the authorities by a network of concerned local mothers. 'In an emergency, hiding the child is the only way of stopping [the expulsion procedure],' said David Rajjou, the immigration lawyer representing the girl, explaining the drastic tactics. 'If a mother is separated from her child, neither can be expelled.'

But the reality is brutal. Sakimat is passed clandestinely from family to family, often at night. For six weeks, for fear of surveillance by immigration services, she has not seen her mother. 'She passes her days drawing, stroking the dogs, writing lines and lines of an invented script,' said one protector, who risks a large fine and five years' jail, last week. 'When someone rings the doorbell, she hides.' A few drawings have been smuggled into the officially registered hostel where her mother is staying.

Sakimat arrived in Brest in January after a five-year odyssey across Europe with her unmarried mother, who was forced to leave home after a radical new Muslim cleric had her fired from her job as a school teacher for 'immorality'. Whenever the prospect of forced return to Dagestan drew close, Patimat Amiralieva moved on, most recently from Germany. But Brest is, after a series of hostels and temporary shelters, the end of the road. 'Even God has forgotten about this place, but we have been tracked down here,' she said earlier this month. 'I just want my daughter to be safe, to live normally in a free country and choose her own future.' Last week the local authority insisted that the law would be applied and that the Amiralievas would have to return to Germany where they have already been refused asylum.

The network protecting Sakimat in Brest was a spontaneous initiative. 'I heard a child speaking German coming out of school and I told my daughter to go and play with her,' said Catherine Walmetz, wife of a naval officer and mother of three. 'When we learnt of the situation we said to ourselves immediately that we had to do something. It seemed totally natural.' Posters declaring 'Patimat is one of our children' have been put up in the window of her school.

Though, according to campaigners, the mobilisation is spreading to French citizens of all backgrounds, the core of the resistance to the government remains France's 1.3 million education professionals. The sector remains a bastion of left-wing support and opposed to the recent series of reforms aimed at tightening controls on immigration introduced by Sarkozy. A controversial law restricting rights of members of immigrant families to join relatives already in France was passed by the National Assembly last month. Supporters said the change allows the nation to 'choose' rather than 'submit to' immigration. Opponents said the law was racist and against the republic's fundamental values.

As is often the case in France, the situation of school children 'without [legal] papers' conflates a range of other issues in a deeply polarised nation less than a year away from presidential elections. The extreme right has made big gains in recent months, with almost a fifth of voters saying they would consider voting for candidates like Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Yet events like that at Bobigny last week show support for 'the French model' and the left remains strong. Polls reveal how extreme left candidates command as much support as the extreme right. 'To protect a child threatened with expulsion is an act of resistance against an ultra-capitalist, ultra-liberal political strategy,' Eliane Assassi, a Communist politician, exhorted the Bobigny meeting. 'Where are the values of liberty, equality and fraternity?'

Yet most of the 'sponsors' have less lofty motivations. Alice Jacques, 30, a teacher, said she would protect the two children of an Algerian neighbour because she saw the family every day. 'It is quite simple. They live in my road. Their kids go to the same school as my son. It's normal. It's the only thing to do.'

The children's father, a construction site worker, said that he had been in France for five years but had outstayed his visa. 'For me, it is people like Alice that represent the real France, not Sarkozy and the right,' he said. 'But I am scared for the future.'

>>>Source<<<

[Al-khiyal]

June 6th - - The French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, was yesterday forced to issue an amnesty to hundreds of children of illegal immigrants who were to be deported at the end of their school term, after a protest movement of teachers and parents began hiding children from police.

But when Mr Sarkozy said the amnesty applied only to children born in France who spoke French and not their parents' native language, protesters vowed to step up their campaign.

Mr Sarkozy, a hopeful in next year's presidential elections, has adopted a hard-line stance on immigration, trying to win over voters from the extreme right. He had previously ordered that all children of illegal immigrants would be forcibly removed at the end of the French school term on June 30, after a de facto truce expired. But outraged opposition politicians and welfare groups vowed to fight the measure, triggering a campaign of civil disobedience.

Teachers, parents, army wives and religious figures began hiding children, moving them from safe house to safe house at night. Their action stopped the deportation of some families.

Presenting his new law on "selective" immigration to the senate yesterday, Mr Sarkozy announced the reprieve for certain children for "humanitarian reasons".

The amnesty would involve around 1,200 children and 800 families. It would apply only to families with children born and educated in France who spoke French and not their parents' mother tongue. Those families would be considered case by case and given a residence permit. Other families would be offered financial incentives for voluntarily returning to their native countries.

But Richard Rayon, spokesman for the group Education without Frontiers, which has been working to help the children, said yesterday that the reprieve would affect only about 2% of what he estimated to be 100,000 children under threat of expulsion.

He said protests must be "stepped up" and his group was planning to picket the opening of President Jacques Chirac's pet project, the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris's new museum of African and Asian art, which opens next month.

He said: "Mobilisation pays. If there hadn't been all these [protest] actions with people sheltering and hiding children in danger and supporting pupils' parents, Nicolas Sarkozy would not have come up with this measure."

He said Mr Sarkozy was still intent on a "children-hunt" and yesterday's measures were nothing more than setting out the rules for that "hunt".

>>>Source<<<

[Al-khiyal]

PARIS - If authorities try to send 7-year-old illegal immigrant Ikram Belhout back to Algeria, they‘ll have to get through Francine Le Cadre first. The 73-year-old retired social worker is among a swelling corps of volunteers resisting government efforts to step up deportations of immigrant families with children — including by hiding illegals from police if needed.

Polls suggest illegal immigration is a top concern ahead of next year‘s presidential and legislative elections, with many in France fearing that immigrants poach jobs, soak up rich state welfare payments and commit crimes.

The government has offered payments to illegal immigrants who agree to return home: A family of four with young children would be eligible for $6,325, for example.

In October, amid a similar uproar from activists, Sarkozy temporarily suspended plans to deport thousands of school-age illegals and their families until the end of the academic year on July 4.

Hundreds of people packed an ornate town hall room in northeastern Paris for one such ceremony Saturday, when volunteers like Le Cadre and elected officials promised to help seven at-risk families, some of whom have been ordered to leave.

Each immigrant family had gripping stories of sneaking into France — by boat across the Mediterranean, by cargo truck from eastern Europe, by plane on a tourist visa that ran out after just a few months.

"We can‘t post ‘Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite‘ on our public buildings and not be brotherly with these families, who sometimes have suffered very difficult situations," Le Cadre said.

The Belhouts said they fled southern Algeria in 2001 after a radical Islamic terrorist group threatened Abderhamane, a pharmacist, with violence if he didn‘t agree to give free medicine to armed militants waging an insurgency against the north African country‘s government.

The protect-the-illegals movement sprouted mainly in schools, where French parents rallied around their children‘s classmates. Some of the children of illegal immigrants were born in France, but under French law do not receive automatic citizenship or the right to stay.

"These children are only asking for one thing: to continue to learn," Socialist former Education Minister Jack Lang told RTL radio Monday, a day after he took part in a sponsorship ceremony in Paris.

Many French seek to block deportations

[Al-khiyal]

PARIS, June 22 (Reuters) - After walking her two children to their Paris school in the morning, Fatma Arbane returns to the stuffy hotel room in which her family eats and sleeps - and worries the police will come looking for her.

Fatma and her husband Hamid arrived from Algeria five years ago, hoping to find a better life in France. They have camped in shabby hotels across Paris since, unable to gain a residency permit and regularly threatened with expulsion.

"I'm worried about going out sometimes because I fear they'll arrest me. When I see a policeman, I cross the street," Hamid said, sitting on a small sofa that serves the family as bed, chair and workplace in their home in northeastern Paris.

Arbane said she still worried when her husband went out on his own but in recent weeks, fear has given way to timid hope.

The 31-year-old said she had been too shy and ashamed for a long time to explain her situation to the mothers of her children's classmates. When she finally did so last month, her case sparked a wave of solidarity from other parents.....

Continue reading..... French parents fight against immigrants' expulsion

[Al-khiyal]

Most children look forward to going on holiday at the end of the school year. But some foreign students in France are dreading vacation that begins next Tuesday. That's when a moratorium ends on deporting illegal youngsters, under tough new immigration legislation. The deportation threat has sparked a huge outcry:

Class is over for the day at Ecole des Trois Bornes, a primary school located in the 11th arrondissement in northern Paris. Children spill out of school, and run to their parents waiting to meet them.

Wahib Arbane and his wife Fatma, an Algerian couple in their 30s, are among them. They have two children enrolled at Trois Bornes. But maybe not for long.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration, and sharply increase the number of illegal immigrants deported from France this year, including children. The center-right government issued a waiver allowing illegal immigrant children to finish school here, before possibly being deported. But that waiver ends next week, when school lets out.

At Ecole des Trois Bornes, Wahib Arbane says he has no intention of returning to Algeria. He left five years ago, when the North African country was torn apart by an Islamic insurgency. Today, the couple scrapes by here without legal papers. Arbane works in construction and his wife Fatma cleans houses.

Arbane says he prefers to remain in France illegally, than to return to Algeria, where, he says, it will be difficult to start over. And his two young children, ages two and seven, don't even speak his native Arabic.

The dilemma of young children like the Arbanes' is being echoed across France. The French government estimates there are between 200-thousand and 400-thousand foreigners living here illegally. Immigrant rights groups estimate up to 50-thousand illegal immigrant children could face deportation. They say many of these youngsters have either been born in France, or came here when they were very young.

Polls show that many French support tougher immigration restrictions. But the threat of deporting children has sparked a growing outcry here. Celebrities, politicians and ordinary French have taken to the streets to protest Sarkozy's legislation.

Richard Moyon is a public school teacher and the founder of Education Sans Frontiers, a grassroots group organizing many of the protests.

As an educator, Moyon said, it's impossible to teach democracy, solidarity and other French values to students, and do nothing for foreign students who are threatened with deportation.

Opposition lawmakers, like Socialist deputy Jacques Lang, are also against the immigration restrictions. Many have symbolically "adopted" illegal immigrant children in a spate of highly publicized ceremonies. They vow to help them regularize their status, and hide them if they face deportation. A possible presidential hopeful in next year's elections, Lang says the immigration legislation is cruel and inhumane.

Lang says cracking down on illegal immigration here is also "stupid." He says France and other European countries will need the know-how of these immigrants in the future. It's a good thing, he says, that children from Africa and elsewhere come to study in France, and eventually stay here.

Faced with mounting protests, Sarkozy announced last week that local prefects, or heads of French regions, could regularize some illegal immigrants on a case-by-case basis. And on Friday, a government-appointed lawyer said France would not begin deporting school-aged children immediately.

But those announcements do not reassure parents at Ecole des Trois Bornes. They are working to help illegal immigrants like Wahib and Fatma Arbane apply for the new regularization waiver. Sandrine Hebard, who has three children at the school, says French parents like herself are building strong bonds with their foreign counterparts. They invite each other's children home to play after school.

Hebard says she wants a different immigration policy for her children's generation. She doesn't want to see more suburban ghettos, which many immigrants in France call home. These children were born here, she says, and they were destined to be French. But Hebard also admits that the views of Parisians like herself, living in an ethnically mixed neighborhood, may not be shared by French elsewhere.

Fatma and Wahib Arbane describe parents at Trois Bornes as "brave people.''

Just a month ago, the couple says, they hardly knew any of the French parents here. Now, they talk to them regularly. "I am a Muslim and they're Christians," Wahib Arbane says, "but I feel like they are my brothers."

Immigrant parents fight against childrens' expulsion in France

[Al-khiyal]

French officials have said that thousands of illegal immigrant families with children enrolled at schools in France are to be given legal status, after a grassroots campaign against their deportation.

Yannick Blanc, the Paris police chief, said in an interview in Le Monde newspaper: "We know that we are going to grant residency papers to several thousand."

A nationwide protest movement had sprung up over plans to expel thousands of illegal immigrant families with children in French schools. Politicians, media and sports stars were among tens of thousands to sign a petition pledging to "protect" them from deportation.

The children are from families that entered France illegally and would normally be expelled along with their parents, but campaigners say that most of them know no other country and that deportation would be inhumane.

Bowing to pressure last month, the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, told prefects, state-appointed regional governors, to reconsider cases on the basis of new criteria, such as whether a child has "strong ties" to France.

French schools are obliged to take in children regardless of whether they are in the country legally.

Government supporters say that blanket regularisation of all pupils from "paperless" families will encourage illegal immigration.

The government believes that there are between 200,000 and 400,000 illegal immigrants in France and is planning 26,000 deportations this year.

The Education Without Borders Network (RESF), which has co-ordinated the protest campaign, says that between 50,000 and 100,000 children of illegal immigrant families are in the French school system.

RESF has repeatedly said it mistrusts the government's measures - saying its proposed amnesty would concern only a fraction of the families facing expulsion - and has pledged to keep up the pressure in the coming months.

French reprieve for migrants' children