PARIS — A couple of months in the past, Abou Sangare was an nameless, 23-year-old Guinean immigrant missing everlasting authorized standing in northern France and, like 1000’s of others, preventing deportation.
Now a lead actor in “Souleymane’s Story,” an award-winning function movie that hit French theaters this week, his face is on each avenue nook and in subway stations, bus stops and newspapers.
The movie and Sangare’s sudden success are casting mild on irregular migration in France simply as its new authorities is taking a more durable line on the difficulty. It’s vowing to make it more durable for immigrants missing everlasting authorized standing to remain and simpler for France to expel them.
Sangare performs a younger asylum-seeker who works as a Paris supply man, weaving his bicycle via visitors within the Metropolis of Gentle. In a case of life imitating artwork, Sangare’s future additionally hangs within the steadiness. Just like the character he portrays, Sangare is hoping to influence French officers to grant him residency and abandon their efforts to drive him to go away.
“After I see Souleymane sitting within the French Workplace for the Safety of Refugees and Stateless Individuals, I put myself in his place, as a result of I do know what it’s like to attend to your (identification) papers right here in France, to be on this state of affairs — the stress, the nervousness,” Sangare instructed The Related Press in an interview.
“Like me, Souleymane finds himself in an surroundings that he doesn’t know.”
Sangare says he left Guinea at age 15 in 2016 to assist his sick mom. He first went to Algeria, then Libya, the place he was jailed and handled “as a slave” after a failed crossing try. Italy was subsequent, and he finally set foot in France in Might 2017.
His request to be acknowledged as a minor was turned down, however he was in a position to examine at highschool and educated as a automobile mechanic — a talent in demand in France. Not too long ago, he was supplied full-time employment at a workshop in Amiens, a northern French city that has been his residence for seven years and which, by the way, was French President Emmanuel Macron’s hometown, too.
However Sangare can not settle for the job due to his unlawful standing. He is unsuccessfully utilized thrice for papers and lives with a deportation order over his head.
Critics say deportation orders have been more and more utilized by successive governments.
“We’re the nation in Europe that produces most expulsion procedures, far forward of different international locations,” mentioned Serge Slama, a professor in public legislation on the College of Grenoble.
However their use — greater than 130,000 deportations have been ordered in 2023 — is “extremely inefficient,” he added, as a result of lots of the orders aren’t or can not for authorized causes be carried out.
Inside Minister Bruno Retailleau says about 10% of individuals focused for deportation find yourself leaving.
Retailleau, appointed in France’s new authorities of conservatives and centrists final month, is making immigration management a precedence.
He desires extra immigrants missing everlasting authorized standing to be held in detention facilities and for longer intervals, and is leaning on regional directors to get powerful.
He additionally says he desires to scale back the variety of foreigners coming into France by making it “much less enticing,” together with squeezing social advantages for them.
Mathilde Buffière, who works with immigrants in administrative detention facilities with the nonprofit Groupe SOS Solidarités, says officers are spending “much less and fewer time” reviewing immigrants’ residency functions earlier than holding them in detention facilities.
In Sangare’s case, his life took a flip final 12 months when he met filmmaker Boris Lojkine. A number of auditions led to him getting the movie’s lead function.
Sangare gained Finest Actor on the Cannes Movie Pageant’s “Un Sure Regard” competitors this 12 months.
However a extra significant prize is perhaps on the horizon: After Cannes, authorities officers emailed Sangare, inviting him to resume his residency utility.
Responding to AP questions, French authorities mentioned the deportation order in opposition to Sangare “stays legally in drive” however added that officers reexamined his case due to steps he is taken to combine.
“I believe the movie did that,” Sangare instructed AP.
“You want a residency allow to have the ability to flip your life round right here. My life will change the day I’ve my papers,” he mentioned.
