Stéphane Ravacley, a baker from Besançon on a hunger strike for more than a week to protest the expulsion of his Guinean apprentice, Laye Fodé Traoré, felt unwell on Tuesday and was taken to the emergency room.

He said he was very tired but thinks of going home in the next few hours and continuing his action.

The baker Stéphane Ravacley felt unwell on Tuesday and was taken to the emergency room.

This Besançon craftsman has been on a hunger strike for more than a week to protest against the expulsion of his Guinean apprentice, Laye Fodé Traoré.

He was "taken care of shortly before 9 am by the firefighters who took him to the Besançon CHU", confirmed the prefecture of Doubs.

The doctor who examined him concluded that he had "deficiencies in many things", said the baker who received a "vitamin infusion".

He thinks of going home "in the coming hours".

"I continue. It's a fight"

"I'm very tired, but I'm fine," Stéphane Ravacley told AFP in the early afternoon while he was still in the emergency room.

“I felt uneasy in my car, in front of the bakery, coming back from delivery,” explained the 50-year-old craftsman whose business is located in downtown Besançon.

"At the beginning, nobody saw me, I stayed a quarter of an hour in the cold. When the firefighters arrived, I was hypothermic."

The bisontin baker now eats only broth and has lost about eight kilograms since the start of his hunger strike.

A nurse visits him every two days.

However, he does not think of putting an end to his hunger strike?

"No, I continue. It's a fight," said the man, determined to fight to keep Laye Fodé Traoré, 18, at his side, whose serious and diligent work he praised.

Legalization of identity documents?

His former apprentice had to interrupt his training.

Supported in France as an isolated minor, he has been covered since his majority by an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) issued by the prefecture of Haute-Saône, the department where he resides.

The young Guinean seized the administrative court of Besançon to legally challenge this OQTF and the refusal of the prefecture to issue him a residence permit.

His request will be considered on January 26.

According to his lawyer, the prefecture considers that the identity documents of Laye Fodé Traoré are not authentic.

According to a source familiar with the matter, the Embassy of Guinea in Paris has just legalized the identity documents provided by Laye Fodé Traoré.

Many stars and anonymous supporters

Raphaël Glucksmann, Omar Sy, Leïla Slimani, Nicolas Hulot, Edgar Morin, Laurent Berger, Marion Cotillard and several EELV mayors on Monday called on the President of the Republic to "help the Besançon baker on hunger strike!", In a tribune signed in the Nouvel Observateur.

The mayor of Besançon, Anne Vignot (EELV), asked in a letter sent to the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin last week to abandon "this administrative vision which consists of welcoming, protecting, training for, on the first day of the majority, reject and expel ".

The petition in favor of Laye Fodé Traoré, launched by Stéphane Ravacley, had collected more than 220,000 signatures on Tuesday.

The craftsman also set up a Facebook page on Monday to centralize the testimonies of all employers and apprentices facing the same problem as him, many according to him.