Family of French expatriates in Libya, they fled the country: "It's an uprooting"

Léa Beaudufe-Hamelin 11:00 a.m., October 14, 2021

TESTIMONY

Françoise, Jean-Pierre and their children, Astrid and Léopold, had been living in Libya since 2003. This family of French expatriates had to leave the country urgently in 2011, when the Arab Spring had just broken out. They were forced to leave everything behind. When they arrived in France, the family, who had not lived there for eight years, found it difficult to rehabilitate. They tell Olivier Delacroix their last days in Libya lived in fear, their hasty departure and their difficult return to France. 

Astrid, the youngest of the family, remembers the morning she and her family left the country: "We packed our bags, got dressed quickly and had a quick lunch. It was around 6 am. had to leave for the airport, except we could still hear gunshots. My mom told my dad we shouldn't go because it was too dangerous. My dad called one of the his friends to escort us to the airport. 

He arrived with another man who had a Kalashnikov on his back.

He entered the house.

I was scared, because in addition, it was I who opened the door.

We left for the airport and on every street, we saw roadblocks.

The person with the Kalashnikov had to go out with the weapon to remove the cinder blocks so that we could pass.

All the houses, police cars and ambulances were burnt.

I didn't know it could happen overnight. "

We sincerely thought we were going to come home

Françoise, the mother of the family, explains that she was forced to leave the country without her husband: "We had a few hours to prepare the luggage. We had spent two nights hearing gunfire, crowd cries and ambulance sirens. We were not reassured. My husband said to me: 'The group decided that you and the children should go home.' I didn't want to take a plane with the kids and leave my husband in this situation. I said, 'No, it's going to calm down. I'm not leaving. I'm staying with you.' He said to me: 'We have no choice, you take the plane.' 

We sincerely thought that we were going to come home, otherwise we would not have left like that, leaving everything there.

I would have loaded my car and left via Tunisia.

We thought about it, but in Tunisia, it was not stable either, events were hardly calming down.

When you leave a country and leave your husband behind, you are not at ease and you sleep very badly. "

We leave everything behind

In Libya, Jean-Pierre managed around fifteen water desalination plants on behalf of a large French group. He evokes his privileged living conditions as an expatriate, which he has hardly renounced: "We had a single storey house. This is what was done in recent years. We had about 240 square meters. There was one. small swimming pool. It was new in Tripoli, it was starting to become commonplace. In 2003, it did not exist. We arrived in France in an apartment of 80 square meters with one bedroom. The four of us sleep in the same room. "

Françoise recounts their difficulty in giving up their belongings: "It is an uprooting. It is also leaving your house and all your belongings. We could not bring back Léo's cat. Charly, our dog, is a survivor. Astrid Said: "I'm not leaving without Charly". He managed to take the plane with us. We're leaving and we didn't choose him. It's not a natural departure. It's forced and forced. We leave everything behind. Everything. "

Jean-Pierre continues: "We leave everything, that is to say we leave a way of life that we had chosen. We leave all our history, because for eight years, we accumulate things." 

You can compare it to a burning house

His wife nods: "We left the photos, the children's tapes when they were little, all our memories collected in eight years, my whole house, my pillows, my bed, the children's games, their library, the car, a whole house, a lifetime. You can compare that to a burning house, except that after the burning house, there is the land. There are still the ruins and we can possibly rebuild on them. There, we leave everything behind self and there is nothing left. "

The family had not lived in France for eight years.

On their return, they had to readjust, explains Jean-Pierre: "What is hard to admit is that we have disconnected ourselves from our reality. We are French, France is our country, but we had changed. Coming back to France, we were completely disconnected. It takes time to realize that we have to do administrative procedures, that we have to re-register on the right, on the left. These are things that we do not think about necessarily and which passed above us. "

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Léopold, the eldest, is 14 years old.

Arrived in Libya at the age of six, he confides experiencing difficulties since his return to France: "I called Libya my country because I grew up there. I arrived there when I was six. years. I have only known Libya. I left all my childhood, everything, whether material or sentimental. I tell myself that here is my new home now. I make do with it. I try to adapt. It's not necessarily easy. Life there was great. I don't feel at all at home. 

There are times when it comes back to me.

I have holes in the process.

I have a blank stare and I think.

The teachers do not all understand.

They shout at me: 'Why are you slouching on your table?

Work !'

I think about everything that I have been through.

Spending two nights under bullets, screams and car explosions is not easy.

We often have nightmares.

I have friends who made it out and made it across the border.

Others were killed.

I have a friend who was going to buy his bread, he passed in a street where there was a sniper in a mosque.

He shot her first in the arm, then another in the head.

He is dead.

I have a lot of friends who died for nothing they did nothing. " 

You don't spend so many years in a country without feeling emotion for all these people

Françoise deplores the lack of compassion they encountered in France: "We do not exist. It is very difficult to communicate with all these people, because they do not realize what we have been through. They are all in their life, their habits and their routine. They tell us: 'You took advantage. You had your big house. Now you will fit in like everyone else.'

In Libya, among French people, we stick together for everything. It is indisputable. Here, everyone is managing. "

The mother of the family keeps contacts in Libya: "I talk to a Libyan friend. It's always a lot of emotions. It's terrible. She is a very young Libyan who fled her country with her parents and who can't wait to go home. They have been bullied, oppressed and prevented from expressing themselves so much. You don't spend so many years in a country with such wonderful people as Libyans without experiencing emotion, feelings and friendship for all these people. "