Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

144 Open Borders
came to be known as sans-papières, playing a big role in keeping the
movement going. In May some went on hunger strike. Hunger strikes started
in several other places including Lille and Versailles, and in some cases led to
regularisation. More than 25 sans-papiers collectives were set up around
France. There were two big demonstrations in Paris in their support. In June
the government gave the right to stay to 22 of the original Saint Ambroise
occupiers. The sans-papiers then occupied the Saint Bernard church, also in
Paris. Ten men went on hunger strike in the church, and they set up the
Sans-Papiers National Coordinating Committee (Coordination Nationale des
Sans-Papiers). On 23 August 1996 1,500 police violently broke into the
church with clubs, axes and tear gas and evicted the sans-papiers and their
children and supporters, separating black from white and women from men,
detaining many of the blacks; the same evening 20,000 people went on the
streets to support them. Most of the Saint Bernard protesters were released;
by January 1997, 103 of the original 324 had received temporary papers, 19
had been deported, two were in jail. They joined a big march in Paris; there
were demonstrations in Marseille, Bordeaux and Toulouse, and again in
Paris. The Saint Bernard Collective moved into disused trade union premises
at Faubourg-Poissonnière. Hunger strikes, demonstrations, petitions and
occupations by sans-papiers in Paris and other parts of France continued at
a high rate. In March 1998 sans-papiers occupied the Notre Dame de la Gare
and Saint Jean de Montmartre churches, which led to mass arrests and
deportations. After a low period, the movement revived with a march from
Toulouse to Paris, an occupation of the embassy of the Holy See, many other
actions and an increase in membership and groups.
The sans-papiers’ protests followed the increasing harshness of
immigration controls and restrictiveness of asylum procedures, and in
particular the progressive illegalisation of people who had often lived, worked
and paid taxes for long periods in France. French frontiers were closed
against immigration in 1974. In 1980 deportations of people already in
France, and detention to make this possible, began. The Socialist government
of 1981 reversed some of these processes; protective measures were
introduced which prevented the expulsion of foreigners who had strong links
in France, including minors, foreigners who had been in France for ten years
or more, the victims of accidents at work, the spouses of French people, and
the parents of children born in France; in addition in 1982, 150,000
immigrants were ‘regularised’ by the Socialist government. In 1984 tenyear
residence permits were introduced for people with links in France and
who had lived there for over three years. In 1986 laws introduced by Charles
Pasqua, the notoriously right-wing Gaullist interior minister, reversed some
of these protective measures and made entry to France harder. In 1989 a
Socialist government repealed the Pasqua laws, reintroducing the principle
that people born in France, and the parents of children born in France, could
not be deported. The right, and Pasqua, returned in 1993, and introduced a
series of new repressive laws. In 1997, shortly before the Socialist landslide