Names marked with an asterisk have been modified to guard identities.
Paris, France – When Moussa*, an undocumented development employee, joined a wildcat strike on the constructing website of Paris’s Adidas Area within the early hours of October 17, 2023, he hoped the protest may result in him getting the papers he wanted to journey house to Mali.
Since arriving in France in 2019, having first boarded a ship from Algeria to Spain, Moussa, 25, has not taken a single trip. After his grandparents died throughout his time away, he felt an urge to return and mourn together with his household.
For eight months, he labored on the area, which has 8,000 seats and was being ready for the 2024 Summer time Olympics. Greater than 400 development staff operated on the website.
He was compensated with regular pay slips through the use of another person’s papers – a standard technique amongst undocumented staff. He was paid about 75 euros ($85) a day for gruelling 10-hour shifts on the area – a price, he stated, that didn’t embrace transport bills, masks or different protecting gear.
Moussa’s bid paid off.
The employees occupied the location earlier than daybreak, blocked it off, after which negotiated all day. By the night, that they had a deal.
After intense discussions between Moussa’s employer, town of Paris, the employees and their union, an inventory of 14 undocumented people who labored on the website was handed over to the French police prefecture, which offers with visa requests, to ensure that their paperwork to be processed.
They signed a framework settlement that might result in a residency allow and medical insurance. It was signed by town of Paris, the development firm Bouygues, and several other subcontractors.
However 18 months later, the dossiers have nonetheless not been authorized. Solely one of many 14 has been given an appointment on the Paris prefecture.
A variety of the undocumented staff are starting to wonder if the delays are by design.
“We didn’t ask for a lot, only a residency allow and medical insurance card. It’s our proper. To today we don’t have the fitting to work on this nation,” Moussa stated.
Three of the 14 staff and Rafika Rahmani, a lawyer for the CNT-SO union who focuses on the rights of expatriates, instructed Al Jazeera that they submitted all the data requested of them greater than a yr in the past.
“We’ve got payslips, we have now all the pieces. We’re taking part in by the foundations. However up to now, we haven’t had even a single summons,” stated Adama*, one of many builders. “We don’t know why the recordsdata are taking so lengthy. We’ve resubmitted them twice.
“It’s like being in jail in France,” added Adama, who has additionally struggled to seek out snug housing. He sleeps in a room with 11 different individuals within the jap suburb of Montreuil. “It’s like when you don’t have papers on this county, you don’t have any worth.”
Regardless of these challenges and his lengthy shifts in development work, Adama takes night lessons to study French.
‘It’s revenge’
In January 2025, CNT-SO, which represents development and cleansing staff, collectively resubmitted 13 dossiers to the Paris prefecture.
“The recordsdata are nonetheless blocked, even though I’ve re-applied for these 13 individuals,” Rahmani instructed Al Jazeera.
She suspects that the shortage of response is a type of backlash, because the strikes unveiled poor working situations in France within the lead-up to the Olympics.
“It’s revenge,” Rahmani stated. “For them, the [striking workers] gave [France] a nasty picture, even when it’s the truth.”
The undertaking developer and two subcontracting corporations – which haven’t responded to Al Jazeera’s request for remark – have allegedly prevented some staff from returning to development websites, that means they’ve misplaced jobs and housing.
In line with Adama, not less than three colleagues haven’t labored since October 2023, and depend on charities to subsidise their meals and housing.
“We’ve got info that the corporate using them didn’t reinstate them. It was a disciplinary measure in opposition to the strike by which that they had participated,” Jean-Francois Coulomme, a consultant of left-wing La France Insoumise get together, instructed Al Jazeera. “It’s a technique of ostracising these workers particularly.”
In February, Coulomme wrote to France’s inside minister by way of a authorities accountability mechanism on the “destiny of the recordsdata submitted to the Paris Prefecture”, demanding “the reputable regularisation of those staff”.
The letter stays unanswered.
“The world staff’ case is consultant of a systemic drawback. It’s a great illustration of the truth that these staff are silenced because of the [precariousness] of their administrative scenario,” Colomme stated.
The CNT-SO union and so-called Gilets Noirs, or Black Vests – a collective of principally undocumented migrants working to get administrative regularisation and housing rights for migrants in France – tried expediting the method by town of Paris, as town was one of many negotiating events.
“We’ve plugged just a few extra holes by going by the mayor of Paris, as a result of they’re the middleman between our contacts and the Paris prefecture. We need to know what the scenario is,” Doums, a spokesperson for the Gilets Noirs, instructed Al Jazeera. “Right this moment, the scenario remains to be, let’s not say completely blocked, however a bit blocked on the stage of the prefecture.”
Colomme recommended the Ministry of the Inside is stopping the dossiers from being authorized.
“The prefectures take their orders from the ministry. So so far as we’re involved, the prefects merely apply the directives of the minister in cost,” Coulomme stated.
Al Jazeera contacted the minister of the inside and Paris prefecture, however didn’t obtain a remark by the point of publication.
The initially swift response and negotiations are a typical response when a metropolis is scrutinised earlier than main worldwide occasions, however typically there is no such thing as a follow-through when the hype dies down.
“The state of exception that the Olympics deliver will be actually essential for leveraging beneficial properties for staff,” Jules Boykoff, researcher and creator of the e book Energy Video games: A Political Historical past of the Olympics, instructed Al Jazeera. “The bottom line is to lock in these beneficial properties whereas the recent glare of the Olympic highlight nonetheless shines in your metropolis. After that, it turns into rather more tough to reap the benefits of that Olympic second to make guarantees to those staff.”
This may be an opportune time for individuals to push for rights, however the Olympics and different main sporting occasions additionally open the door for exploitation, particularly for individuals in precarious conditions like undocumented staff.
“This is only one extra egregious instance of making the most of individuals to create a sporting occasion that claims to profit the numerous however really simply advantages the few,” Boykoff stated. “The Olympics are likely to highlight what we’d name surplus populations – whether or not we’re speaking about expendable athletes or expendable staff who make the Olympic spectacle attainable.”
Rahmani stated, “Through the strike, all these individuals got here and made large guarantees … These deputies and senators come to an indication or strike and make a dedication to regularise these staff, however in the long run, there’s no follow-up, they usually inform you that they haven’t any energy.”
‘This ideology is at present affecting our nation as an entire’
For years, France’s authorities has hardened its stance in opposition to immigration.
In December 2023, the French Parliament handed a controversial immigration regulation that differentiates between foreigners “in a scenario of employment” and those that are usually not. The measure made it tougher to obtain social advantages for out-of-work expatriates.
The brand new laws have performed out in workplaces.
Between 2023 and 2024, in response to official figures, the variety of undocumented staff who have been regularised dipped by 10 %. Deportations, alternatively, rose by greater than 1 / 4.
“This ideology is at present affecting our nation as an entire, with an instrumentalisation of the migration situation, which suggests we’re taking a very utilitarian method,” Coulomme stated.
On the bottom, Doums stated the Gilets Noirs have noticed the identical phenomenon.
“The political scenario on this nation regarding immigrants and foreigners is changing into more and more sophisticated,” Doums acknowledged. Nonetheless, he insisted the collective would maintain pushing for his or her rights. “We’re not going to cease there. Even after regularising the 14 individuals, we’re not going to cease.”
