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

Resistance 145
victory and, some argued, contributing to it, the Debré laws were introduced.
These laws cancelled the automatic right to renewal of ten-year residence
permits, making it subject to ‘public order’ and other conditions, and
substituted temporary one-year permits for some categories of residents, thus
immediately making the situation of thousands of people precarious and
potentially illegal. They increased surveillance measures, including fingerprinting,
to check immigration status at work and elsewhere. They also
attempted to introduce a measure obliging people offering hospitality to
foreigners not only to obtain permission from the town hall, but to report
when they left; this measure attracted huge protests and was withdrawn,
after massive demonstrations which were joined by hundreds of celebrities
who announced their intention of breaking the law.
In June 1997 the left regained control of parliament. There were high
hopes that they would proceed to a general regularisation of the sans-papiers.
Immediately after the elections, while Socialist Party supporters were
celebrating inside, demonstrators were outside announcing their determination
to hold them to their promises on refugees and migrants. Lionel
Jospin, the new prime minister, met Ababacar Diop, one of the leaders of the
sans-papiers, and announced that the regularisation of sans-papiers would be
speeded up, but would be conditional on certain criteria such as ties with
France. Officials made clear that regularisation would not be generalised as
in 1982. Chévènement, the new minister of the interior, issued a decree
inviting applications for regularisation. Some 150,000 applied, but only
about 75,000 were granted papers, for one year only. Another 63,000, most
of whom had lived in France for many years, were refused and made subject
to deportation. The Chévènement decree came to seem more like a trap than
an offer, since the 63,000 had revealed their names and addresses and were
faced with a choice of deportation or going back into hiding, afraid each time
they went out that that might be the last they saw of their families. In
addition, an unknown number did not come forward, mistrusting the
Socialists’ promises. The Socialist government did not repeal the Pasqua
laws. It allowed one hunger strike to continue for 78 days. The sans-papiers
continued to demand the regularisation of all the undocumented, both those
who declared themselves and those who did not.
On 27 March 1999 the Sans-Papiers National Coordinating Committee
organised a big demonstration in Paris, together with many anti-racist
organisations and trade unions and political parties, including the CGT, the
CFDT-FGTE, the French Communist Party, the Greens, the Ligue
Communiste Révolutionnaire and Lutte Ouvrière, and with participation
from most European countries, including a delegation from the Campaign
to Close Campsfield. A delegation of 3,500 Italians in special trains,
accompanied by some Albanian refugees, was stopped at the French frontier,
which was closed to all travellers by 1,500 special riot police and members
of the French Foreign Legion. The European demonstration’s demands were
for the regularisation without conditions of all the sans-papiers in Europe; for