Reportage
The still difficult journey of African refugee students from Ukraine in France
In Loué in the Sarthe, the town of 2,300 inhabitants welcomes Ukrainians and African students.
© Sylvie Koffi/RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
For six months, following the war in Ukraine, thousands of displaced people have found refuge in France.
Among them were non-Ukrainian students from the African continent who wanted to continue their studies.
Since July 2022, a circular from the Ministry of the Interior has given them the green light to enroll in French universities, and has "frozen" the obligations to leave the territory (OQTF).
However, some students have just received some.
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Rostambert is 20 years old.
He joined France six months ago, a victim of the war in Ukraine.
This Cameroonian student has one goal in mind, to continue his studies in computer engineering.
He was able to register at the Sorbonne and he does not understand why the prefecture sends him an obligation to leave the territory (OQTF): “
They say that I have not succeeded in proving that I was a student in Ukraine.
Yet they know the situation.
They know that some universities no longer have the possibility of providing school certificates to their students.
And they also say that I was enrolled at the Sorbonne in the consolidation year.
They put that in justification of the OQTF.
»
For him, it's a real injustice: “
I don't understand why we are mistreated.
With the Ukrainians, we fled the same war.
We spent days at the borders without eating.
Then when we get here, it's a whole other world that opens up for them, but for us, all the doors are closed.
»
For Célia Hadi, from the France Fraternité association, which accompanies them through this administrative labyrinth, it is a real obstacle course: “
Just because you have a registration does not mean that you have a student card automatically.
The blockage is more at the level of the prefectures.
There is a moratorium that freezes expulsions until the start of the school year in September.
So receiving an OQTF is a bit weird.
»
The deadlines are short: one month to file an appeal.
In case of rejection, the young man will have to leave France.
Students who have to start all over again
Other students enrolled in pharmacy, architecture, etc., cannot continue their studies in France in the field they wanted.
Ben is 24 years old.
He is originally from the Ivory Coast.
Like him, there are about twenty students from Ukraine who arrived in Loué, in the center-east of France, in the middle of the school year.
After six years of medicine in Ukraine, her dream of becoming a doctor is being shattered.
“
There are some who have been able to enroll much more easily than others in relation to their courses.
Some people have been demoted.
For me, it's a little more complicated because in medicine, I've been asked to repeat since the first year
, ”explains Ben.
Ben was in sixth grade, and he only had one more year left before graduating.
But the war that continues takes him further and further away from his dream: to become a doctor.
“
Currently, I am quite disappointed and lost because it is as if we were asking to go back to square one.
But I still believe in it a little somewhere.
I think maybe the decision makers will take a measure in our favour, that is to say, we are making an exception to the rule to give the possibility of continuing our studies.
We can help France with regard to the deficit there is in the field of health.
This is what I find paradoxical.
»
But no question for Ben to give up.
He has just registered at Le Mans for a Health Access License (LAS).
►Also listen: Grand Reportage - France: the suspended future of African students arriving from Ukraine
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