Names marked with an asterisk have been modified to guard identities.
Paris, France – When Moussa*, an undocumented development employee, joined a wildcat strike on the constructing web site of Paris’s Adidas Area within the early hours of October 17, 2023, he hoped the protest would possibly result in him getting the papers he wanted to journey residence to Mali.
Since arriving in France in 2019, having first boarded a ship from Algeria to Spain, Moussa, 25, has not taken a single trip. After his grandparents died throughout his time away, he felt an urge to return and mourn together with his household.
For eight months, he labored on the enviornment, which has 8,000 seats and was being ready for the 2024 Summer time Olympics. Greater than 400 development employees operated on the web site.
He was compensated with regular pay slips through the use of another person’s papers – a standard technique amongst undocumented employees. He was paid about 75 euros ($85) a day for gruelling 10-hour shifts on the enviornment – a fee, he mentioned, that didn’t embody transport bills, masks or different protecting gear.
Moussa’s bid paid off.
The employees occupied the positioning earlier than daybreak, blocked it off, after which negotiated all day. By the night, that they had a deal.
After intense discussions between Moussa’s employer, town of Paris, the employees and their union, a listing of 14 undocumented people who labored on the web site was handed over to the French police prefecture, which offers with visa requests, to ensure that their paperwork to be processed.
They signed a framework settlement that might result in a residency allow and medical insurance. It was signed by town of Paris, the development firm Bouygues, and a number of other subcontractors.
However 18 months later, the dossiers have nonetheless not been accepted. Solely one of many 14 has been given an appointment on the Paris prefecture.
Quite a few the undocumented employees are starting to wonder if the delays are by design.
“We didn’t ask for a lot, only a residency allow and medical insurance card. It’s our proper. To today we don’t have the proper to work on this nation,” Moussa mentioned.
Three of the 14 employees and Rafika Rahmani, a lawyer for the CNT-SO union who focuses on the rights of expatriates, advised Al Jazeera that they submitted all the knowledge requested of them greater than a yr in the past.
“We now have payslips, we’ve got the whole lot. We’re enjoying by the principles. However to this point, we haven’t had even a single summons,” mentioned Adama*, one of many builders. “We don’t know why the information are taking so lengthy. We’ve resubmitted them twice.
“It’s like being in jail in France,” added Adama, who has additionally struggled to seek out snug housing. He sleeps in a room with 11 different folks within the japanese suburb of Montreuil. “It’s like for those who don’t have papers on this county, you don’t have any worth.”
Regardless of these challenges and his lengthy shifts in development work, Adama takes night courses to be taught French.
‘It’s revenge’
In January 2025, CNT-SO, which represents development and cleansing employees, collectively resubmitted 13 dossiers to the Paris prefecture.
“The information are nonetheless blocked, even supposing I’ve re-applied for these 13 folks,” Rahmani advised Al Jazeera.
She suspects that the dearth of response is a type of backlash, because the strikes unveiled poor working circumstances in France within the lead-up to the Olympics.
“It’s revenge,” Rahmani mentioned. “For them, the (hanging employees) gave (France) a foul picture, even when it’s the truth.”
The mission developer and two subcontracting corporations – which haven’t responded to Al Jazeera’s request for remark – have allegedly prevented some employees from returning to development websites, that means they’ve misplaced jobs and housing.
The undocumented employees who protested say greater than a yr has handed since they had been promised their papers (Al Jazeera)
In response to Adama, not less than three colleagues haven’t labored since October 2023, and depend on charities to subsidise their meals and housing.
“We now have info that the corporate using them didn’t reinstate them. It was a disciplinary measure towards the strike during which that they had participated,” Jean-Francois Coulomme, a consultant of left-wing La France Insoumise social gathering, advised Al Jazeera. “It’s a technique of ostracising these workers particularly.”
In February, Coulomme wrote to France’s inside minister by way of a authorities accountability mechanism on the “destiny of the information submitted to the Paris Prefecture”, demanding “the professional regularisation of those employees”.
The letter stays unanswered.
“The sector employees’ case is consultant of a systemic drawback. It’s illustration of the truth that these employees are silenced because of the (precariousness) of their administrative state of affairs,” Colomme mentioned.
The CNT-SO union and so-called Gilets Noirs, or Black Vests – a collective of largely undocumented migrants working to get administrative regularisation and housing rights for migrants in France – tried expediting the method via town of Paris, as town was one of many negotiating events.
“We’ve plugged a number of extra holes by going via the mayor of Paris, as a result of they’re the middleman between our contacts and the Paris prefecture. We need to know what the state of affairs is,” Doums, a spokesperson for the Gilets Noirs, advised Al Jazeera. “Right now, the state of affairs remains to be, let’s not say completely blocked, however a bit blocked on the degree of the prefecture.”
Colomme instructed the Ministry of the Inside is stopping the dossiers from being accepted.
“The prefectures take their orders from the ministry. So so far as we’re involved, the prefects merely apply the directives of the minister in cost,” Coulomme mentioned.
Al Jazeera contacted the minister of the inside and Paris prefecture, however didn’t obtain a remark by the point of publication.
The initially swift response and negotiations are a typical response when a metropolis is scrutinised earlier than main worldwide occasions, however typically there is no such thing as a follow-through when the hype dies down.
“The state of exception that the Olympics carry could be actually essential for leveraging positive factors for employees,” Jules Boykoff, researcher and writer of the ebook Energy Video games: A Political Historical past of the Olympics, advised Al Jazeera. “The secret’s to lock in these positive factors whereas the recent glare of the Olympic highlight nonetheless shines in your metropolis. After that, it turns into far more tough to make the most of that Olympic second to make guarantees to those employees.”
This may be an opportune time for folks to push for rights, however the Olympics and different main sporting occasions additionally open the door for exploitation, particularly for folks in precarious conditions like undocumented employees.
“This is only one extra egregious instance of making the most of folks to create a sporting occasion that claims to learn the various however really simply advantages the few,” Boykoff mentioned. “The Olympics are likely to highlight what we would name surplus populations – whether or not we’re speaking about expendable athletes or expendable employees who make the Olympic spectacle attainable.”
Rahmani mentioned, “Through the strike, all these folks got here and made massive guarantees … These deputies and senators come to an illustration or strike and make a dedication to regularise these employees, however ultimately, there’s no follow-up, they usually inform you that they haven’t any energy.”
‘This ideology is at present affecting our nation as a complete’
For years, France’s authorities has hardened its stance towards immigration.
In December 2023, the French Parliament handed a controversial immigration legislation that differentiates between foreigners “in a state of affairs of employment” and those that aren’t. The measure made it harder to obtain social advantages for out-of-work expatriates.
The brand new laws have performed out in workplaces.
Between 2023 and 2024, in line with official figures, the variety of undocumented employees who had been regularised dipped by 10 p.c. Deportations, then again, rose by greater than 1 / 4.
“This ideology is at present affecting our nation as a complete, with an instrumentalisation of the migration situation, which suggests we’re taking a completely utilitarian method,” Coulomme mentioned.
On the bottom, Doums mentioned the Gilets Noirs have noticed the identical phenomenon.
“The political state of affairs on this nation regarding immigrants and foreigners is turning into more and more sophisticated,” Doums said. Nonetheless, he insisted the collective would hold pushing for his or her rights. “We’re not going to cease there. Even after regularising the 14 folks, we’re not going to cease.”
A basic view of the Adidas Area earlier than its inauguration at Porte de la Chapelle in Paris, France, January 25, 2024 (Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters)
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