For the past few years, Europe has gravitated towards nationalism and government policy initiatives geared against immigration and asylum seekers. In France, the situation is hardly promising for illegal immigrants currently working hotels, construction, restoration, and most any other low-wage jobs considered too menial for majority of the French. Faced with the precious nature of their situation, illegal immigrants are beginning to take a stand.
France refers to immigrants without proper legal status as sans-papiers, literally "without papers". An article in the June 2008 edition Le Monde Diplomatique (see Delocalises de l'interieur by Olivier Piot – subscription required) traces the working conditions and exploitation of working illegal immigrants in France. There are anywhere between 300,000 to 600,000 working illegal immigrants.
Five thousand sans-papiers took to the streets in protest in Paris on May 1st. France's high tax scheme provides comfortable benefits. Untold thousands pay into the system and yet are denied any rights to social welfare and health care. Exploitation is rampant as employers abuse the illegal status of the workers to their advantage.
In July of last year, Paris passed legislation requiring employers to declare any worker without proper papers or face a massive 15,000 Euro fine and up to five years in prison. Then in November, it released a list of 150 job functions that desperately require workers. However, solidarity organizations such as Droits devant! criticize the state for not developing a comprehensive regulation plan to expedite the necessary papers to fill those positions.
"We don't have much to lose," one worker without papers near Paris told Le Monde Diplomatique, "By going on strike or by participating in protests, we know what we risk. Each sans-papier who walks out of the shadow exposes himself and may be expulsed at any moment. But we have been living in fear everyday for years that we will be arrested and sent back to our countries. This is why we have decided to fight!"
