Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) — Koutoubo Gassama spent a week in a
Strasbourg detention center in October waiting to be expelled to
Senegal as part of French President Nicolas Sarkozys clampdown
on illegal immigrants. Instead, the 27-year-old cook was granted
permission to stay on a temporary work visa.
Gassama, who works at a hotel in a snowy mountain pass in
eastern France, benefited from a little-publicized amendment to
the immigration law that last year grabbed headlines for
proposing DNA tests for foreigners wanting to join family
members. His case may signal a milder turn in Sarkozys law-and-
order immigration policy.
“There are people who need to hire and others who want to
be hired, said Violaine Carrere, whos in charge of labor
issues at GISTI, a Paris-based charity that provides legal
support to immigrants. “The reasoning is to put them together
and do it silently.
GISTIs hotline has gotten numerous calls from employers
seeking information about the amendment, which gives regional
prefects the right to grant temporary work visas to “sans
papiers, or foreigners working in France illegally, she said.
The new measure, which applies to people from outside the
European Union, is far from the massive legalization of
clandestine workers seen in Italy in 2003 and in Spain in 2005.
Instead it focuses on keeping a limited number of people in jobs
deemed important to the local economy as established by
lists drawn up as part of the overall immigration policy.
The process is “case by case, moderate and progressive,
said Frederic Lefebvre, the lawmaker from Sarkozys UMP party
who wrote the amendment. He estimates it will apply to a few
hundred people per region.
`Firmness and Humanity
“The objective is to have both firmness and humanity,
Lefebvre said. The amendment was welcomed after the uproar over
the DNA testing “caricaturized Hortefeuxs law, he said,
referring to Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux.
Sarkozy, 52, wooed voters from Jean-Marie Le Pens anti-
immigration party in last years presidential election by
calling for systematic expulsions of illegal immigrants and a
more selective policy for awarding visas based on skills rather
than family ties. He repeated his tough line in a Jan. 8 New
Years speech without mentioning the new alternative.
“People dont enter France without authorization, and when
they do enter France without authorization they are escorted
back to their country, Sarkozy said.
Flexible Approach
His willingness to allow a more flexible approach comes two
years after violent riots shook suburbs where many of the
countrys 5 million immigrants live. In 2007, the government
fell short of a target of expelling 25,000 of Frances some
400,000 illegal immigrants for a second year.
While campaigning, Sarkozy promised to integrate
disaffected minorities and proposed “positive discrimination
for youngsters from impoverished neighborhoods, though few
specific policies have followed. He has said 50 percent of visas
issued to immigrants should fill needed jobs within five years,
up from 7 percent in 2006, while making entries for family
reasons harder.
“Which head of state has kept steady on his immigration
policy? said Riva Kastoryano, research director at the Center
of International Studies and Research in Paris. “Its a trial-
and-error process.
Risk of Expulsion
Illegal immigrants still risk expulsion if they step
forward to be regularized, and then dont fill whats considered
one of the most needed jobs in their region or win the prefects
backing, GITSIS Carrere said.
In addition, Carrere said, the priority job lists often
call for high-level skills, such as computer abilities, for non-
EU nationals, while immigrants from new EU member states may get
by with lower-level skills, such as roofing or cooking.
“It may just be an operation to switch West and Northern
African immigrants with those from Eastern Europe, she said.
The experience of Gassama, the Senegalese cook, shows that
isnt always the case. French hotels and restaurants need 40,000
workers, according to Andre Daguin, chairman of the industry
group UMIH, and “regularizing people is a good way to limit
cheaters in the job market.
Gassama attended school for only two years in Kaboudiara,
an arid village where he set up a brick bakery when he was 15.
He arrived in France a decade ago and started as a dishwasher at
the Velleda Hotel in Alsace five years later.
Anxious Nights
With Sarkozys emphasis on expulsions, Gassama said he
often woke at night and rushed to the window to see if the
police were coming for him. In September, he was fined 500 euros
($733) for using a false visa, and a month later was thrown into
the Geispolsheim detention center.
His employer, Thierry Grandgeorge, agreed to try to help
him become legal, paying 5,000 euros in legal fees. Grandgeorge,
30, received support from a group of local UMP politicians.
“Its easy to arrest someone on his way to work,
Grandgeorge said, adding that the police should instead focus on
troubled suburbs. Grandgeorge said Gassama now cooks Alsatian
choucroute better than he does.
Gassama, who learned French on the job, plans to pick up
his one-year visa this week, and hopes to eventually transform
it into a longer-term work permit.
“I start dreaming what Ill be doing later, he said.
“I dream to get more and more integrated.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Fabio Benedetti-Valentini in Paris at
