Governing borders in France: From extraterritorial to humanitarian continement

Canadian Journal of Law and Society

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 411-432

  Makaremi, Chowra ^a  

^a UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL   (Canada)

Author keywords

Border control; Extraterritorial confinement; Legal mobilization; Undocumented aliens and asylum seekers in the EU

Indexed keywords

EID: 77951483167     PISSN: 08293201     EISSN: 19110227     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0829320100010103     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. See especially Etienne Balibar, Nous, citoyens d'Europe? Les frontières, l'Etat, le peuple (Paris: La Découverte, 2001).
2. See also Mark Duffield, Development, Security, and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples (London: Polity Press, 2007).
3. Didier Bigo, Police en réseaux, l'expérience européenne (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1996), 303.
4. Balibar, Nous, citoyens d'Europe?, 175.
5. As a judicial oddity, waiting areas have been an object of study by jurists. See Denis Salas, "'Incriminés, discriminés ..." Immigration illégale et pratiques judiciaires en France," Hommes et migrations 1241 (2001), 178 (on the inefficiency of legal control on administrative detention).
6. See also François Julien-Laferrière, "La rétention des étrangers aux frontières françaises, " Cultures et conflits 23 (1996), for a comparative approach to the confinement and expulsion of aliens, highlighting the administrative rationalities at stake.
7. See Sandra Lavenex, The Europeanisation of Refugee Policies: Between Human Rights and Internal Security (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001).
8. See Nicolas Fischer, "Entre urgence et contrôle. Les centres de rétention dans la France contemporaine," Asylons 2 (2007), http://terra.rezo.net/article663.html.
9. Figures from the French Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Mutually Supportive Development (June 3, 2008), archived at ANAFE, http://www.anafe.org/download/generalites/CR-reunion-annuelle-ZA-2007.pdf
10. Ethical issues related to this fieldwork are discussed in Chowra Makaremi, "Étudier et assister les étrangers aux frontières," in Les politiques de l'enquête : épreuves ethnographiques, ed. Didier Fassin and Alban Bensa (Paris: La Découverte, 2008).
11. These issues have been developed in the literature on border camps and deportation that has emerged in the last decade. See especially Alessandro Dal Lago, "Non-persons," Associations: Journal of Social and Legal Studies 3 (2001);
12. Nicolas Fischer, "Les expulsés inexpulsables. Recompositions du contrôle des étrangers dans la France des années 1930," Cultures et conflits 53 (2005);
13. Suzan Bibler Coutin, "Illegality, Borderlands, and the Space of Nonexistence," in Globalization Under Construction: Governmentality, Law and Identity, ed. Richard W. Perry and Bill Maurer (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003);
14. Federico Rahola, "La forme-camp. Pour une généalogie des lieux de transit et d'internement du present," Cultures et conflits 68 (2007);
15. Marc Bemardot, Camps d'étrangers (Broissieux: Editions du Croquant, 2008);
16. Henri Cpurau, Ethnologie de la forme-camp de Sangatte. De l'exception à la régulation (Paris: Editions des Archives contemporaines, 2007);
17. Carolina Kobelinsky and Chowra Makaremi, eds., Confinement des étrangers: entre circulation et enfermement (special issue], Cultures et conflits 71 (2008).
18. On the qualification of alien detention as situations of "no-law," see Lipra Israel, "Building French Immigration Laws through Litigation: The Paradoxical History of the GISTI's First Years," Politix 62 (2003), especially at 116.
19. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (1934),
20. trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 5. Schmitt's concept is discussed in Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
21. Marc B. Salter et al., eds., Politics at the Airport (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008).
22. Politics at the Airport 2008, Ibid.
23. Michel Foucault, Sécurité, territoire, population : cours au Collège de France, 1977-1978 (Paris: Seuil/Gallimard, 2004).
24. Anna Pratt, Securing Borders: Detention and Deportation in Canada (Vancouver UBC Press, 2005).
25. Judith Butler and Gayatri Chakravorry Spivak, Who Sings the Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging (New York: Seagull Books, 2007), 42.
26. Art L221-1 Ceseda (Code de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile), abrogating the Ordonnance no 45-2658 sur les conditions d'entrée et de séjour des étrangers en France du 2 novembre 1945, J.O., 4 November 1945, 7225, art. 35.
27. "Transit visas" are documents allowing travellers to travel via France during their flight to a third country. These "visas" are instituted by decree for a list of countries, corresponding to the list of main countries of origin of asylum seekers. This is why they have been identified as an important technique of bypassing Geneva Convention obligations to protect refugees (see note 19 below) and controlling asylum claims. See Gérard Beaudu, "La politique européenne des visas de court séjour," Cultures et conflits 50 (2003). Indeed, since the institution of "transit visas," the number of asylum claims has sometimes dramatically decreased, even as the conflict or political situation in the country of origin has not improved-quite the opposite, in fact.
28. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 28 July 1951, 189 U.N.T.S. 150 (entered into force April 22, 1954).
29. By default it was then ruled by the international obligations of the state relating to the European Convention on Human Rights, 4 November 1950, Eur. T.S. 5, 213 U.N.T.S. 221, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 19 December 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171.
30. I thank Veronique Nahoum-Grappe (personal communication) for this expression.
31. See note 23 below.
32. Decret no 82-442 pour l'application des articles 5, 5-1 et 5-3 de l'Ordonnance no 45-2658 du 2 novembre 1945, J.O., 27 May 1982, 7225, art. 12.
33. Interior Ministry, Circulaire du 17 septembre 1986, INT/D/86/00338/C;
34. Circulaire du 8 août 1987, INT/D/87/00224/C
35. Ibid., Circulaire du 17 septembre [translated by author].
36. Within the Schengen Area, created by the Schengen Agreements, 25 European countries have abolished all internal border controls. The Schengen Agreements, signed in 1985 and expanded in 1997 and 1999, "abolished checks at the internal borders of the signatory States and created a single external border where immigration checks for the Schengen area are carried out in accordance with identical procedures. Common rules regarding visas, right of asylum and checks at external borders were adopted to allow the free movement of persons within the signatory States without disrupting law and order." The Schengen Area and Cooperation (Europa 2009), http://europa.eu/legislation-summaries/ justice-freedom-security/free-movement-of-person-asylum-immigration/133020-en. htm.
37. Author's field notes, February 20, 2005 [report translated by author].
38. Constitutional Council, Decision 92-307 DC, February 25, 1992, http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitotionnel/root/bank-mm/ anglais/a92307dc.pdf.
39. The latest modifications came with Loi n 1631 du 20 novembre 2007 [Act on the control of immigration, integration and asylum], J.O., 21 November 2007, 1893.
40. Loi no 92-625 du 6 juillet 1992 [Act on waiting zones in ports and airports], J.O., 9 July 1992, 9185 [translated by author, emphasis added].
41. Further discussion of these reports appears below in the section on mobilization against border detention
42. See note 17 above.
43. Interior Ministry, Circulaire du 9 août 1993, INT/D/93/00185/C [translated by author].
44. Circulaire du 9 Août, 1993, Ibid.
45. See also Chowra Makaremi, "Alien Confinement in Europe: Violence and the Law. The Case of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France," in The Literature of Concentration Camps, ed. Colman Hogan and Marta Marín-Dòmine (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007).
46. L 'Europe des camps : la mise à l'écart des étrangers (2) [special issue], Cultures et conflits 57 (2005);
47. Etrangers : la mise à l'écart [special issue], Politix 1 (2005).
48. See also Pratt, Securing Borders.
49. On the humanitarian system of border detention see Chowra Makaremi, "Les « zones de non-droit » : un dispositif pathétique de la démocratie," Anthropologie et société 32 (2008).
50. See Morgane Iserte, "Récit de la « crise tchétchène » (décembre 2007-février 2008): Eclairages circonstanciés sur le dispositif de confinement des étrangers dans la zone d'attente de Roissy-Charles de Gaulle," in Enfermés dehors : le confinement des étrangers, ed. Carolina Kobelinsky and Chowra Makaremi (Bellecombes en Beauges: Editions du Croquant, 2009).
51. GISTI, "Roissy : un filtrage sélectif," Plein Droit 13 (1991) [translated by author].
52. Loi no 1119 du 26 novembre 2003 [Act on the control of immigration, residency of aliens, and nationality], J.O., 27 November 2003, 20146 [translated by author].
53. Pratt, Securing Borders.
54. Author's field notes, interview with G.S., March 24, 2005 [translated by author].
55. Author's field notes, interview with M.D., June 15, 2007 [translated by author].
56. Author's field notes, interview with L.R., June 15, 2007 [translated by author].
57. At the beginning, ANAFÉ comprised both NGOs-Amnesty International, the Cimade (Service Œcuménique d'Entraide), the COMEDE (Comité Médical pour les Exiles), the CAIF (Conseil des Associations Immigrées en France), France Terre d'Asile, the GAS (Groupe Accueil et Solidarité), the GISTI (Groupe d'Information et de Soutien des Immigrés), the LDH (Ligue des Droits de l'Homme), the MRAP (Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l'Amitié entre les Peuples)-and professional associations or unions- the Association of Lawyers for the Recognition of Fundamental Rights to Immigrants (ADDE), the CFDT Union of Air France employees, the CFDT Union of Paris airport employees, the union of civil aviation pilots, the unitary union of commercial flight attendants, the Paris regional association of CFDT Unions, and, last but not least the CFDT Union of Frontier Police.
58. ANAFÉ, Zones d'attente des aéroports et des gares ferroviaires-visite des associations habilitées. Rapport 1998-1999 (ANAFÉ, 2000), http://www.anafe.org/download/rapports/rapport98-99.pdf.
59. Stephane Julinet "Dans les zones d'attente : Atteinte aux libertés et inefficacité," Plein Droits 44 (1999) [translated by author].
60. The term double peine refers to the expulsion after imprisonment of migrant prisoners, who will then serve another sentence in their home country. See Abdelmalek Sayad, "Immigration et « pensée d'État »," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 129 (1999).
61. See also Nicolas Fischer, "Les territoires du droit," Vacarme 34 (2006), http://www.vacarme.org/article538.html.
62. See Alex Panzani, Une prison clandestine de la police française. Arene (Paris: François Maspero, 1957).
63. On this point see Austin Sarat and Stuart A. Scheingold, eds., Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
64. While the threat of clandestine migration is the main legitimizing rationale for detention of aliens (see Interior Ministry, Circulaire du 17 septembre 1986, cited at note 24 above), denunciations and journalists' investigations into these issues have subverted the state rhetoric by using the word "clandestine" to label the secrecy and discretionary dimension of detention. See, e.g., the titles of journalistic investigations dedicated both to Arene and Roissy: Panzani, Une prison clandestine; Anne De Loisy, Bienvenue en France. Six mois d'enquête clandestine en zone d'attente (Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 2005).
65. e sem.Jur.1802
66. Panzani Une Prison Clandestine; Anne de Loisy, Bienvenue en France. Six Mois D'enquête Clandestine en Zone D'attente 2005, Ibid.
67. Amuur v. France (1996), 3 E.C.H.R (Ser. A) 826, 22 E.H.R.R. 533.
68. Let us note here that the indefinite duration of detention, which was one reason for condemning French border detention as a violation of art. 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, still applies today to immigration detention centres in Quebec, Canada, where some asylum seekers have been held for up to 21 months (the French administration limited border detention to 20 days in 1992, as mentioned above). In Ontario, too, Pratt, Securing Borders, has found that a substantial number of those detained in "temporary" facilities were "long-term" detentions.
69. Committee on Migration, Refugees and Demography, Report on the Arrival of Asylum-Seekers at European Airports, Doc. 6490 (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, September 12, 1991), http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/ Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc91/EDOC6490.pdf
70. Recommendation on the Arrival of Asylum-Seekers at European Airports, Doc. 1163 (Council of Europe, 14th Sess., 1991).
71. Sarat & Scheingold, Cause Lawyering.
72. Israel, "Building French Immigration Laws," 115-44.
73. The text of this agreement is available online via ANAFÉ at http://www.anafe.org/acces.php.
74. See Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975);
75. Michel Foucault, II faut défendre la société (Paris: Hautes Etudes/Gallimard, 1997);
76. Michel Foucault Naissance de la biopolitique (Paris: Hautes Etudes/Gallimard, 1997).
77. Panzani, Une prison clandestine, 100 [translated by author].
78. Retention" is another euphemistic system of detention, equivalent to "holding" at the borders, for sans-papiers awaiting deportation. In France, the detention that takes place at the port of entry is organized by specific legislation and structures that are complementary to, but separate from, other apparatuses of alien confinement such as detention centres for sans-papiers.
79. Salas, "Incriminés, discriminés."
80. Author's field notes, interview with Ms B., March 31, 2005 [translated by author].
81. Salas Incriminés, Discriminés, Ibid. [translated by author].
82. Salas Incriminés, Discriminés [translated by author], Ibid.
83. The institution of border detention for asylum seekers and a specific system of asylum examination in the waiting zone pending a decision by police is an exception, and appears particularly restrictive compared to other situations in the European Union.
84. Author's field notes, interview with Mr S., March 16, 2005 [translated by author]. On the question of legal resistance and legitimacy and the issue of "involuntary legitimation" of lawyering see Dean Ellman, "Struggle and Legitimation (Symposium: Lawyering in Repressive States)," Law and Social Inquiry 20 (1995).
85. Foucault II faut défendre la société, 34 [translated by author].
86. Foucault II Faut Défendre la Société, Ibid., 35 [translated by author].
87. Foucault II Faut Défendre la Société 35, Ibid.
88. This argument is developed in Makaremi, "Les « zones de non-droit »."
89. Jacques Rancière, Aux bords du politique (Paris: Gallimard, 1998).