Aoday, the contradictions of our migration policy are obvious. Several hundred thousand people live in France without status, without papers and without prospect of regularization. Our medico-social system and our education system, fortunately, provide them with some protection: state medical aid, emergency accommodation and schooling for children are guaranteed, at least in principle.
But they have the right neither to work nor to stay! This makes the social work of the associations in charge of emergency accommodation untenable, and forces undocumented people to go underground and condemns them to desocialization. How can they fit in with the fear in their stomachs of identity checks and deportation, picking up their children from school or going to work?
However, these people, alongside their work colleagues, contribute to the economic activity, to the social life of our country. In our restaurants, they do the washing up and the cooking. In our buildings, they clean the offices and take care of the common areas. In our streets, they work on construction sites and public works. In our shops, they knead the bread and cut the meat. In our cities, they collect and sort waste. In our homes, they look after our children and take care of our elders. In our supermarkets, they operate handling, shelving and security. On our farms, they pick the fruit and take care of the animals. In large logistics companies, they prepare orders and ensure their delivery. In our industries, they produce. Throughout our territory, they deliver meals to our homes, lay railway tracks and install fiber optics.
A precarious and devalued cohort
We see them, we know it. These people were on the front line, during the pandemic, to guarantee the continuity of the activities essential to our lives. We see them, we know it. The President of the Republic himself said it, on April 13, 2020, during the first confinement, they are among those whom “our economies recognize and remunerate so poorly”. They constitute a precarious and devalued cohort that simple morality forbids us to ignore.
The meaning of history and the most elementary justice is to recognize them. Living together, forming a society, obliges us not to accept their social invisibilization which too often makes them the scapegoats of public debate.
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