Bafode, Prince Junior and Idriss, March 31, 2021 in Nantes -

J. Urbach / 20 Minutes

  • Since a baker's hunger strike in Besançon for the regularization of his apprentice, many similar situations have been revealed.

  • In Nantes, Bafodé, Idriss and Prince Junior, graduates or about to be so, had their residence permit refused.

“I follow the instructions, I go to school, I have a boss who is ready to hire me.

I don't see what more I can do… ”At 20, Bafodé is preparing to take his professional baccalaureate in the market gardening sector.

But the Guinean, who arrived in Nantes in July 2016, will not be able to enter working life if he does not quickly obtain a residence permit with work authorization.

Two years ago, when he had already completed several internships in a company, he received an obligation to leave French territory.

Since then, the appeal he filed is still being investigated.

"Her future is blocked," laments Jeannine, who lodges the one she describes as "honest and helpful".

This situation is absurd, especially when we know the need for manpower that there is in this sector.

"

While a petition was launched for Bafodé, dozens of similar cases, more or less publicized, seem to emerge.

After a hunger strike by a baker in Besançon, which has since set up the Patrons solidaires collective, mobilisations have sprung up all over France.

Last month, a column launched by sixty associations was published by the newspaper

Le Monde

, to warn of this "terrible human and social waste".

In this text, signed by 200 personalities such as Omar Sy, Agnès Jaoui or Lilian Thuram, it is asked to "put an end to the generalized suspicion which weighs on many young people whose civil status documents are regularly contested, while their identity has been confirmed ”, or to“ stop demanding documents that cannot be presented ”.

This is what happened to Idriss, who arrived in Nantes in 2017. Despite “a passport issued by the embassy” of Côte d'Ivoire, his minority was only recognized by the children's judge “three weeks before his 18 years old, ”he says.

A decision that did not protect this young man, now adult, from an obligation to leave the territory, received a few months ago.

“In the meantime, I had my CAP in automotive maintenance, my boss had offered me a job.

It was not possible without the papers so I continued in professional bac, he explains.

There, I await an answer of the court for the continuation… ”

"A protective and stable residence permit"

These successive refusals also decided Prince Joseph to continue his studies.

Whoever has obtained a cleaning agent's CAP is about to take a second, in the field of masonry this time.

He also claims to have transmitted to the prefecture the promise to hire a company, without success for the moment.

"To submit an application, you must justify six months of training," he says.

Me, I have two CAPs… How much longer will I have to wait?

"

Faced with these situations, the signatory associations of the platform ask that these young people can "continue the life they started by easily obtaining a protective and stable residence permit".

If some of them obtain it, others are granted by the prefecture a temporary residence permit, for six months or one year, as was the case recently for an apprentice carpenter from Nantes.

"But this is not a promise of regularization," said Christine Bernazeau, of the League of Human Rights.

It's only a way to calm things down. ”

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  • Expulsion

  • Nantes

  • Society

  • Migrants

  • Employment