Hundreds of “undocumented” illegal immigrants mostly from Africa, were evicted Saturday morning by the French police from an agency recruiting temporary workers located in the 12th Arrondissement of Paris that they have occupied since October 12.
There were about 300 undocumented immigrants, most of whom were employed and wanted, through this occupation deemed illegal by the courts, to claim from the French authorities the regularization of their situation.
The police besieged the place in the morning on Saturday to proceed with their expulsion calmly, unlike the case of other “undocumented” migrants who had been expelled and thrown in to the street last August with clubs and tear gas.
The undocumented workers did not resist and preferred, with the support of the CGT union, to withdraw to other sites still occupied, as a protest to demand residence permits.
Thousands of undocumented migrants of African origin have been living and working for several years on the French territory and are waiting to be regularized. Most of them, with the exception of a few hundreds, could not benefit from the circular from the Ministry of Immigration which favored granting papers to those who have a declared paid job.
In retaliation, those immigrants both “desired and rejected” are increasing protests and occupying public and private buildings to attract the media and public attention on their plight.
A group of undocumented immigrants working in the security sector who had been dismissed by their employers for lack of valid papers are staging a sit-in every afternoon outside the entrance of a large public building in Paris to demand their reinstatement and their regularization.
Source African Press Agency
