• The #Gilets_Noirs Are in the Building

    Paris’s tourist economy relies on a hidden army of undocumented migrants. But these workers are no longer happy to remain in the shadows — and their protests for regular status are drawing inspiration from the gilets jaunes.

    On July 12, a collective of undocumented migrants (known in French as sans-papiers) occupied the Panthéon, a mausoleum and popular tourist site in Paris’s Latin Quarter. Calling themselves the gilets noirs, the collective has carried out occupations of several high-profile locations in recent weeks, even taking over a wing of the capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport.

    Building on previous sans-papiers struggles (and, by their very name, the spirit of the gilets jaunes), the protesters have asserted a radical decolonial agenda. Their protests have highlighted their conditions as undocumented migrants in France but also the harm done by French business and military interference in their own (mostly African) homelands.

    On July 20, the gilets noirs marched to demand justice for Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old who died in police custody in 2016. In this article appearing that day on Mediapart, Mathilde Mathieu and Rouguyata Sall explained how migrants who are usually reduced to the most invisible living and work conditions have begun to make their voices heard.
    Trampled

    After the gilets noirs occupied the Panthéon on July 12, the undocumented migrants’ collective found themselves surrounded and even outright trampled on by the police. Some of those arrested were handed “compulsory orders to leave French territory”; fifteen of them were detained, awaiting their expulsion.

    But that wasn’t the whole story. This young movement of sans-papiers, which arose in November 2018 with the demand for mass regularizations, had long remained in a media blind spot. Now it claimed a “victory.”

    This was, firstly, a “legal victory.” The fifteen people who were detained were all freed, thanks to the aid of a pool of “anti-repression” lawyers who had been mobilized in advance of the action. One participant was called back before the courts for “public indecency.”

    But this was, above all, a “political victory.” For years, it seemed that undocumented workers’ struggles had been rendered invisible, as public debate instead polarized around the refugee question — that is, the matter of who had the right to asylum and who had what Interior Minister Christophe Castaner called the “vocation” to get back on the plane home.

    Today, with the Panthéon occupation, the gilets noirs proclaim that “the fear has passed over to the other side.” Now counting in the hundreds, they address themselves to none other than the prime minister himself, refusing to be “managed by Castaner and the police prefects.”

    On July 12, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe was indeed forced to react, faced with images of the (peaceful) occupation as well as the radical speeches — delivered over the tombs of Victor Hugo and Voltaire — with their talk of “France perpetuating slavery by other means.”

    Galvanized, the gilets noirs have announced that fresh actions are coming soon. As one active member, Houssam, puts it, “we’re ready to take action — civil disobedience.”
    Who Are the Gilets Noirs?

    But what do the gilets noirs want to achieve? Why has their movement arisen now? And in what sense do they mark a change from more “traditional” sans-papiers collectives?

    Fundamentally, their aims can be summarized as follows: “We are not just fighting for papers [to be regularized] but against the whole system that produces sans-papiers.” Houssam adds: “We want to destroy all the actors in the racist system, or at least go on the attack against them.” And they’re doing so with a kind of risk-taking that’s rarely been seen in recent years.

    “We’ve already lived through hell in the Sahara and in Libya,” explains Camara — a well-known name in the movement, in a migrants’ hostel in Paris’s nineteenth arrondissement. “So, we won’t be giving up.” A Malian, he arrived in France only in September 2018 and is already working on building sites: “The employers pay us fifty euros a day, they profit. And if you ask for a Cerfa form [to present an application to the prefecture, requesting regularization on the basis of your work] they get rid of you and take someone else on instead. And so on and so forth.”

    Camara’s not the only gilet noir bearing the scars of what was once the land of Gaddafi. In Libya, almost all migrants are thrown into detention cells and camps, and sometimes traded by Mafiosi, tortured, and reduced to slavery. Nor is Camara the only one who’s survived being cast off in a raft on the Mediterranean. The French authorities endeavor to distinguish the people on these rafts who are potential refugees and those who are “economic migrants.” Yet the raft-goers all show one same face: an expression of terror. After all this, should they then have to play a waiting game in France, hiding away and begging at their employers’ feet for “a Cerfa form”?

    “The fear is over. If we don’t take risks, we won’t get anything,” insists Mamadou, a 21-year-old Malian who arrived in France in 2016 via Libya and Italy. Arrested in front of the Panthéon on July 12 and slapped with a “compulsory order to leave French territory” (the very first one he’s received in France), he was subsequently locked up in the Vincennes detention center before being released by a judge.

    “I’ll be there for the next action,” Mamadou promises. “We don’t win rights just sitting at home.” His older brother Samba, employed in the building trade, will also participate: “On the building sites, in restaurants, in cleaning, there’s no one but sans-papiers working there. It’s time the prime minister listened to us. We’re a bigger sight than the #Panthéon!”

    Kaba also took a big risk on July 12. A 24-year-old from Mauritania, she explains how she fled abuse and a forced marriage. After arriving in France less than two years ago, she saw her asylum application rejected by the Ofpra (the office responsible for granting or denying refugee status) and then the National Asylum Rights Court (in a case that is still on appeal). If she gets checked by police, a police prefect could decide that she will be subject to “forced displacement” (as the administrative euphemism puts it) within just two hours.

    Kaba had already taken part in several gilets noirs actions, without getting arrested. The actions in which she participated included the one at Charles de Gaulle airport on May 19, in order to buttonhole the CEO of Air France (“the French state’s official deporter”) and the one on June 12 at the headquarters of the Elior Group, a specialist in collective catering with a reputation for hiring sans-papiers (who, a company spokesman claims, provide “aliases” when they sign up, i.e. the papers of some other person who does indeed have regularized status).

    This time, in front of the Panthéon, “the police asked if I had papers, and I said no.” Kaba was taken to the police station, only to be released an hour and a half later without being given a “compulsory order to leave French territory.” According to her comrades, this was just another case of the reign of “arbitrary rules.”

    “Thanks to the gilets noirs I’ve found work,” she points out — lining up cleaning and “garbage removal” jobs in offices from 5:30 AM to 8:30 AM, and then working afternoons for a perfume brand, for 500 to 700 euros a month. But what about the crackdown with which these actions meet? “We have no choice.”

    Some of the gilets noirs even sleep in the street. Indeed, this a novelty of the movement: while the struggles of undocumented workers have traditionally been led by solidarity networks and by West Africans (Malians, Mauritanians, Senegalese people, etc.) boasting no few years in France, the gilets noirs also include Sudanese, Eritrean, or even Afghan migrants who have only just seen their asylum claims rejected, or even been “Dublinized” (that is, they risk being sent back to the first EU country where their fingerprints were taken — an application of the “Dublin agreement” on asylum).

    “Among the gilets noirs there are new arrivals who are still looking for a place to put their suitcases,” confirms Anzoumane Sissoko — one of the spokespeople for the CSP 75 (a longstanding Paris sans-papier collective). “The only possibility they have is to accept any job going.” At a personal level, Sissoko — who has already been fighting for “eighteen years” — gives hearty support to the gilets noirs: “There’s 700 of them — if we joined together with the other collectives and unions, there’d be maybe 2,000 of us.”

    Indeed, behind this movement, we find just two organizations: most importantly, La Chapelle Debout (“La Chapelle, Stand Up!”) — an association created in northern Paris in 2015 in order to help out migrants on the streets — and Droits devant !! (“Rights First!” — a pun on “Straight Ahead!”), an association founded by figures like popular scientist Albert Jacquard at the end of 1994, not long before the months-long occupation of the Saint-Bernard church by some 300 sans-papiers.

    These two associations worked on their own, without either the “traditional” sans-papiers collectives (for years weakened by divisions, or even internecine struggles) or the unions who have engaged on these issues. They directly mobilized in the workers’ hostels, one by one (some forty such structures are already involved).

    “Yes, we took a step back from some collectives (like the Union Nationale des Sans-Papiers, UNSP) who have lowered their ambitions and now settle for deals in the police prefectures to push a few people’s files under the radar, while losing sight of the goal of a general regularization,” reports Jean-Claude Amara, a longtime leading light in Droits devant !! (and co-founder of Droit au logement — Right to Housing). “This gave us more chance of taking forward steps.”
    “It’s State Racism”

    As one member of La Chapelle Debout insists, “Our aim is to smash the criteria of the Valls circular of 2012” (a circular issued by then-Interior Minister Manuel Valls, which defined the possible justifications for regularization in terms of employment or family and private life).

    After the gilets noirs’ action outside the Comédie-Française theatre (one of their very first actions), in January they nonetheless sent a delegation to the Paris police prefecture — getting at least one regularization into the bargain. But after that, “case by case” measures were over.

    This ruffled feathers among the classic actors in the sans-papiers movement. As one of them (wishing to remain anonymous) put it, “We found that a dynamic toward unity had been set in motion.” Since fall 2018, all kinds of collectives and union bodies have worked on combining their efforts, cooking up fresh actions for after the summer break. They have been mobilized both by former Interior Minister Gérard Collomb’s “asylum and immigration” law (promulgated in September 2018), with its battery of repressive measures, and by the lies the Right and far right have spread about the “Marrakesh pact” (a United Nations agreement on sharing refugees among different countries). But they have also been given fresh impulse by the gilets jaunes protests.

    “We took part in meetings,” acknowledges Jean-Claude Amara of Droits devant !!. “There was, it seemed, a will to go beyond little demos that no longer worried anyone . . .  But nothing came of it.”

    “It’s a mistake not to work together,” laments Alioune Traoré — a representative of the UNSP. “Faced with the arrests, it’s an obligation on all of us to give our support, and we should try and do that all together. But I have my differences with La Chapelle Debout: we shouldn’t say we can hope for regularization or housing for everyone. People come [to the protests] for that — that’s what they hope for — but most gilets noirs don’t meet the criteria. We, too, raise slogans to demand that everyone should be able to move and live, wherever they want. But in reality, you can’t go along to the prefecture taking people who haven’t racked up the [required] time [staying in France] . . .  Personally, I think there’s manipulation going on.”

    Alioune Traoré isn’t a fan of the choice to stage the action at the Panthéon: “The cemetery is sacred ground. Even [to occupy] a church is pushing it. People have been occupying them ever since Saint-Bernard. But even in the case of the Saint-Denis Basilica, when we went in there [to denounce the ‘Collomb law’] in 2018, Marine Le Pen denounced this as ‘profaning’ a place of worship . . .  We should seek out different targets, so the far right and the government won’t be able to exploit the situation.” Others like him fear that ultimately the July 12 occupation will merely harden the government’s stance, and the effect will be to step up the repression a notch — against everyone. It’s a question of strategy.

    “The risk taken at the Pantheon was disproportionate — there’s a suicidal aspect to it,” worries one long-standing participant in sans-papiers struggles. “And even looking at public opinion, I think in the current context, we’d do better to choose targets that underscore what unites all of us, around work or around schools, like RESF does” (referring to the Réseau Éducation Sans Frontières — Education Without Borders Network).

    As for the unions, they remain principally attached to a strategy of strikes and picket lines — the CGT (France’s largest union federation) had put pressure on Elior long before the gilets noirs occupation. “[The gilets noirs] handed us twenty-three case files, which are still being analyzed,” a representative of the catering firm reports. “We are working [to facilitate regularizations that meet the necessary criteria] with tried and tested methods — we’re already working on that with the CGT. Now, we’ve had another actor come and attach themselves to things.”

    As for the risks the gilets noirs ran at the Panthéon, one member of La Chapelle Debout replies: “Yes, the sans-papiers are taking risks, but that’s not something we’ve imposed — it’s discussed collectively. And police harassment is an everyday affair: they can be arrested at any moment. Every day, far more people are thrown into detention centers than engage in political activity. And then we also take ‘anti-repressive’ measures: the participants have lawyers’ names in advance and are much better defended than they would be by a court-appointed!”

    Houssam, a member of La Chapelle Debout and a “son of an immigrant,” refuses to consider migrants “as fragile types.” “The goal is precisely that migrants should speak for themselves as political subjects” And he remembers how often the Right spreads suspicions that the sans-papiers are being “instrumentalized” politically. Such arguments were also pulled out by former socialist Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve regarding the clashes between migrants and police in Calais. “For us it’s worrying to see arguments of that type being made on the Left.”

    “We need to break the sans-papiers struggle out of the logic of a tug-of-war with the interior minister alone — and do that permanently” argues Jean-Claude Amara. He put it bluntly: “If we don’t, we remain within the framework of colonial administration.”

    This “decolonial” dimension of the struggle has irritated some on the Left who identify as “universalists.” They take issue with the choice of the name gilets noirs — a reference to the dark fury (colère noire) of the sans-papiers, of course, but also to a certain skin color. This irritation only intensified in June after one of the gilets’ petitions was signed by the Parti des Indigènes de la République (PIR) (a decolonial group critical of “colorblind” secularism, accused by others on the Left of promoting identitarian “Islamo-leftist” and even anti-semitic ideas).

    “Some put up barriers — it made things difficult for some associations,” reports Jean-Claude Amara, who is “not overly committed” to the choice of name (“perhaps not the best label to widen our ranks”). “But we haven’t given in. Even if Droits devant !! isn’t necessarily on the same page as the PIR comrades on everything, we don’t want to give in to the blackmail that says ‘if they’re signing, then we won’t.’ That’s also been the great failing of the sans-papiers movement in recent years: forgetting what the anti-colonial and anti-racist struggle is really about.”

    “Do some people really want to deny us legitimacy by saying we’re decolonial?” asks an annoyed Houssam. “That’s not our problem. But do we think that the fate imposed on migrants is a case of state racism? Yes.”

    One trade unionist asks, “Is the point to show that the state is racist, or to win rights? Can you even still negotiate with an actor you characterize as racist?”

    It’s not certain that the gilets noirs are going to be a magnet for a lot of trade unionists in the months to come. And still less clear that that’s what they’re aiming for.

    https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/07/gilets-noirs-france-protesters-sans-papiers
    #économie #exploitation #sans-papiers #tourisme #économie_touristique #résistance #manifestation #protestation

    ping @isskein @karine4

    • Qu’est-ce que le mouvement des “Gilets noirs” ?

      Depuis novembre, les “Gilets noirs”, ce mouvement “des sans-papiers, des sans-voix, des sans-visages”, multiplient les actions pour demander la régularisation de “tous et toutes” mais aussi des logements et des conditions de vie dignes.

      “Ni rue ni prison, papiers et liberté.” Mardi 16 juillet, non loin du Tribunal de Grande instance (TGI) de Paris, une banderole affichant ce message a été installée. Au-dessus, inscrits au marqueur sur du papier cellophane, ces deux mots : “Gilets noirs.” Quelques membres de ce mouvement de “sans-papiers, sans-voix, sans-visages” - créé en Île-de-France en novembre 2018 pour demander la “régularisation de tous les sans-papiers” dans le pays mais aussi des logements et des conditions de vie dignes - ont fait le déplacement ce matin. Ils attendent des nouvelles : plusieurs de leurs “camarades” passent actuellement devant le juge des libertés et de la détention, pour contester leur placement en centre de rétention administrative.

      Le contexte : vendredi 12 juillet, plusieurs centaines de Gilets noirs investissent le Panthéon, dans le Ve arrondissement de Paris. Cette action s’inscrit alors dans une campagne nommée “Gilets noirs cherchent Premier ministre”, dont le but est “d’instaurer un rapport de force avec l’Etat”, comme nous le raconte une membre de La Chapelle debout, collectif avec lequel l’action a été menée, tout comme l’association Droits devant ! “Celui-ci est composé d’habitants d’une cinquantaine de foyers d’Ile-de-France, mais aussi de locataires de la rue. En tout, 17 nationalités sont représentées.” Il s’agit donc à la fois de sans-papiers mais aussi de demandeurs d’asile et de personnes sans-abris - les situations pouvant se combiner -, même si la Chapelle debout réfute “toutes les différences que l’Etat veut créer pour diviser les gens".

      "Des Gilets jaunes qui ont été noircis par la colère”

      Au Panthéon, les Gilets noirs demandent un rendez-vous avec le Premier ministre, en sus de leurs revendications. Selon les journalistes sur place, la situation est calme. Ils seront finalement évacués, et 37 d’entre eux interpellés par les forces de l’ordre pour des vérifications d’identité - un membre de la Chapelle debout, lui, emploie le terme de “rafle”, évoquant plusieurs charges policières “très violentes”, une quarantaine de blessés, des insultes racistes et une “volonté de faire peur et casser le mouvement”. Comme le souligne ce papier de France info, plusieurs journalistes sur place ont en effet constaté des tirs de gaz lacrymos, des charges policières et des évacuations de blessés (voir par exemple ce long papier de Basta !, qui publie aussi plusieurs vidéos).

      Une vingtaine de Gilets noirs ont au final été placés en rétention administrative. Lundi 15 juillet, La Chapelle debout expliquait dans un communiqué que “huit Gilets noirs [avaient] été libérés grâce à la mobilisation politique” mais aussi grâce au “soutien financier” de tous et toutes, une cagnotte ayant été créée pour payer des avocats. Lesquels ont, selon le collectif, constaté des irrégularités dans les procédures, d’où la libération de leurs clients. Mardi 16 juillet, ce sont sept autres personnes qui passaient devant le TGI.

      L’action au Panthéon n’était pas la première organisée par le mouvement, dont le nom a été trouvé, selon la Chapelle debout, par un Gilet noir qui a eu cette formule lors de la marche “contre le racisme d’Etat et les violences policières”, en mars, à Paris : “On est des Gilets jaunes qui ont été noircis par la colère.”

      En janvier, un rassemblement avait eu lieu devant la Préfecture de police de Paris. En mai, rebelote avec l’occupation du terminal 2F de Roissy. Selon un membre de la Chapelle debout, le but était de “dénoncer la participation d’Air France” aux expulsions - “Nous on dit déportation” - de personnes immigrées hors de l’Etat français. Enfin, en juin, plusieurs centaines de "gilets noirs" avaient investi les locaux du groupe de restauration collective Elior, à la Défense, de façon à “dénoncer l’exploitation de sans-papiers et leurs conditions de travail” dans cette entreprise, qui, selon eux, capitaliserait sur le “business” de l’emploi de personnes sans-papiers de façon à les “faire travailler gratuitement”.

      “Les Gilets noirs, c’est un mouvement social”

      “On va organiser la riposte, ajoute ce membre du collectif, qui se félicite du soutien de plusieurs personnes et associations, par exemple Assa Traoré et le comité Vérité et justice pour Adama (c’est moins le cas de Marine Le Pen, qui a parlé d’occupation "inadmissible", ou encore d’Edouard Philippe, qui a mis en avant "le respect des monuments publics"). Les Gilets noirs, c’est un mouvement social, pas un mouvement de sans-papiers. C’est un mouvement qui appartient à tous ceux qui combattent le racisme, qui sont d’accord qu’aucun être humain n’est illégal, et qui veulent une vie digne pour tout le monde.” Et d’ajouter : “C’est un mouvement d’impatience : on en a marre d’attendre pour une vie digne, marre d’attendre pour sortir de l’isolement.”

      L’idée de collectif est en effet très forte au sein des Gilets noirs, comme nous le raconte Camara, qui vit dans un foyer et milite aux côtés du mouvement depuis novembre 2018 : “Il est important de s’organiser et de se mobiliser collectivement. Ce qu’on vit, c’est de l’esclavage moderne. La police veut nous faire peur, mais on n’a plus peur. On va aller jusqu’au bout : tout ce qui arrive, c’est notre destin.” Même discours du côté de Samba, dont le petit-frère, interpellé au Panthéon, était présenté au TGI ce mardi : “On va se battre, ensemble, jusqu’au bout de nos ongles. On n’arrêtera pas.” Quelques heures plus tard, un membre de la Chapelle debout nous envoie ce sms : “Tout le monde est libre, on est partis ensemble.” Il précise que la préfecture a fait appel sur "quelques dossiers".

      https://www.lesinrocks.com/2019/07/17/actualite/actualite/qui-se-cache-derriere-le-mouvement-des-gilets-noirs

  • #Gilets_noirs : les #sans-papiers envahissent #Roissy !

    Communiqué des Gilets Noirs et de #La_chapelle_debout :

    « Dimanche 19 mai, 14h : les Gilets Noirs (migrant.e.s à la rue et foyers de toute l’Ile-de-France en lutte) et le collectif La Chapelle debout viennent d’envahir l’#aéroport de Roissy Charles de Gaulle !

    Ils et elles sont plusieurs centaines.

    Contre les déportations et pour des papiers pour tous.tes ! Il veulent parler au PDG d’Air France et au premier ministre Edouard Philippe.

    Ce n’est pas par hasard que nous nous retrouvons dans ce lieu. Ce n’est pas une contestation symbolique. Ce lieu est la base arrière et l’avant poste de la guerre contre les sans papiers et tou.tes les étranger.eres illégalisé.es.

    Depuis plusieurs mois, nous nous organisons. Nous avons déjà arraché des victoires. Aujourd’hui, nous lançons aujourd’hui une campagne contre la peur et la honte et pour l’égalité, la dignité, la justice et leur déclinaison concrète :

    DES PAPIERS POUR TOUS.TES !!

    Merci de relayer le plus massivement possible le communiqué

    La lutte continue

    ثورة ثورة حتى النصر »

    Les Gilets Noirs et La chapelle debout

    Formidable !

    Grand moment de courage des plus opprimé.es de la hiérarchie sociale, dans l’antre même de la machine qui les fait travailler dans les tâches les plus humiliantes ou bien, selon l’humeur de l’État et de sa police, qui les expulse avec la collaboration de la compagnie d’Air France et de la société ADP, qui sépare touristes et expulsé.es au moyen d’un simple rideau dans l’avion comme un voile sur la réalité du monde !

    Magnifique élan de solidarité de celles et ceux qu’on surnomment désormais les gilets noirs, au cœur de la convergence des luttes. Car, nous le savons bien : nous ne nous sauverons pas seul.es, à l’écart, replié.es sur nous-mêmes dans notre petit coin du monde, dans notre petite corporation professionnelle, dans notre petite famille ou sous le tampon certifié de je ne sais quelle identité nationale.

    L’émancipation sociale sera celle de tou.tes les opprimé.es ou ne sera pas.

    Merci camarades sans-papiers, gilets noirs, sœurs et frères humains de l’exemple que vous nous offrez !

    Yannis Youlountas

    http://blogyy.net/2019/05/19/gilets-noirs-les-sans-papiers-envahissent-roissy
    #résistance #renvois #expulsions #régularisation #migrations

    ping @nepthys @reka @isskein

    • France: Hundreds of People Occupy Airport to Protest Airline’s Role in Deportations

      Several Hundred People have occupied terminal 2F of the airport #Charles-de-Gaulle in #Roissy, #France, to protest against Air France’s collaboration in deportations from France and the asylum policy of the French state.

      The protest was organised by the collective Gilets Noirs (Black Vests), a group of migrants without papers (“sans-papiers”) in the Ile-de-France region, and the pro-migrant activist group la Chapelle debout. Around 500 people occupied the terminal for two hours. The protests denounced those who benefit from the removal of people considered “illegal” and demanded that Air France stops financial, material logistic and political support of deportations. The airline was also asked to stop pressuring members of staff and passengers who oppose deportations. In the afternoon, four representatives of the Gilets Noirs were received by a delegation of the airline.

      The occupation forms part of a series of actions to protest the restrictive character of French and EU asylum policies and ask for the provision of accommodation and regularisation of the status of the migrants, most of which come from former French colonies.

      The airport is located next to one of the biggest migrant detention centres in France, the centre de rétention administrative (#CRA) of #Mesnil-Amelot. In 2018 more than 1000 people were deported from there.

      https://www.ecre.org/hundreds-of-people-occupy-airport-to-protest-air-frances-role-in-deportations
      #rétention #détention_administrative

    • « Gilets noirs » : des sans-papiers occupent Roissy pour dénoncer la « collaboration » d’#Air_France

      Plusieurs centaines de sans-papiers ont occupé l’aéroport de Roissy dimanche après-midi. Une opération menée par un collectif de « gilets noirs », pour dénoncer le rôle d’Air France dans les expulsions.

      https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/paris-ile-de-france/val-d-oise/gilets-noirs-papiers-occupent-roissy-denoncer-collabora

    • Crni prsluci: Nedokumentirani migranti bore se za prava i dostojanstvo u Francuskoj

      Inspiriran Žutim prslucima, u Francuskoj raste novi pokret pod nazivom Gilets Noirs ili Crni prsluci. Crni prsluci su pokret nedokumentiranih radnika migranata u Francuskoj koji su, zbog svog statusa, prisiljeni živjeti i raditi u nesigurnim i izrabljivačkim uvjetima.

      Njihov primarni zahtjev je da se svim migrantima bez dokumenata u Francuskoj odobri boravišni status. Također zahtijevaju poštivanje njihovih osnovnih ljudskih prava uključujući: pravo na sklonište, normalne radne uvjete, prestanak policijske represije i rasističkog postupanja od organa vlasti, zatvaranje izbjegličkih pritvornih centara...

      U petak, 12. srpnja, oko 700 pripadnika Crnih prsluka mirno je okupiralo Panteon u Parizu, iznoseći navedene zahtjeve i pozivajući na sastanak s francuskim premijerom Edouardom Philippeom. Prosvjedovali su ispod kipa na kojem piše: “Živi slobodno ili umri”.Grupa je u izjavi na Twitteru rekla: „ Zauzeli smo Panteon jer u Parizu ima 200.000 praznih domova dok mi spavamo ispod obilaznica."

      “Mi smo bez dokumenata, bez lica i bez glasa. Dolazimo do grobova vaših velikana kako bismo osudili vaše skrnavljenje uspomena naših drugova, naših očeva i majki, naše braće i sestara na Mediteranu, na ulicama Pariza, u domovima i kućnim zatvorima,“ dodaje se u priopćenju. Policija je na prosvjed odgovorila represijom. Najmanje 50 osoba je ozlijeđeno, uhićeno je njih 37 od kojih je 20 ostalo u pritvoru.

      Dosadašnje protestne akcije Crnih prsluka također su istaknule nesigurne, izrabljivačke radne uvjete, kao i općenito loše uvjete života. Prije mjesec dana, 12. lipnja, migranti-aktivisti organizirali su demonstracije okupirajući ured francuske multinacionalne ugostiteljske tvrtke Elior u poslovnoj četvrti Pariza. Elior je izabran zbog toga što tvrtka redovito iskorištava migrantske radnike bez dokumenata. Prosvjednici su naveli kako Elior neredovito isplaćuje migrante bez dokumenata te im često ne dozvoljava prekovremeni rad. Kada je jedan radnik istaknuo ovaj problem, tvrtka je zaprijetila prijavom imigracijskim vlastima.

      Osim krađe na nadnicama, Elior također profitira držanjem radnika migranata u ranjivim uvjetima. Pokret je izvijestio da Elior redovito odbija potpisivati ​​dokumente za svoje radnike migrante koji bi im omogućili da osiguraju redoviti imigracijski status. Francuske imigracijske institucije ne izdaju papire migrantima ako poslodavac ne potpiše navedene dokumente. Prosvjednici su istaknuli kako ti primjeri ukazuju da postoji partnerstvo između francuskih tvrtki i države s ciljem zadržavanja migranata u nesigurnim uvjetima kako bi ih i dalje lakše iskorištavali.

      Na spomenutim demonstracijama Crni prsluci su tražili sastanak s premijerom i predsjednikom uprave tvrtke Elior. Uspjeli su se sastati s upravom koja je potpisala sporazum u kojem se obvezuje da će poraditi na njihovim zahtjevima. Prije toga, u svibnju, Crni prsluci su zauzeli zračnu luku Charles de Gaulle(CDG) u Parizu kako bi iskazali svoj bijes protiv prisilnog protjerivanja migranata. Prosvjedi su bili usmjereni upravo na Air France koji je izvršio sve deportacije u suradnji s francuskom vladom.

      Prosvjednici su zauzeli terminal 2F zračne luke CDG koja ima glavni ured Air Francea i većinu internih EU letova. Ovom akcijom željeli su skrenuti pozornost na slobodu kretanja koju uživaju građani EU-a, dok nedokumentirani migranti ulaze u terminal samo kada ih se deportira ili kada rade kao čistači, zaštitari ili rukovatelji prtljage. Prosvjednici su zahtijevali da zrakoplovna kompanija prestane s “bilo kakvim financijskim, logističkim ili političkim sudjelovanjem u deportacijama”.

      Odgovornost je na Francuskoj

      Središnja poruka pokreta također je isticanje veze između imperijalističkih akcija Francuske i eksploatacije migrantskih radnika u Francuskoj. Mamadou, pripadnik Crnih prsluka, rekao je Lukeu Butterflyu koji piše za OpenDemocracy: “Oni ne žele da zemlje u Africi budu neovisne, jer onda ne mogu zaraditi na nama. Oni žele da ostanemo na koljenima, kako bi mogli iskorištavati naše resurse i zarađivati. Stoga je vrlo važno razgovarati i o tome dok se nalazimo u La Défenseu(pariškoj poslovnoj četvrti) budući da mnoge tvrtke odavde iskorištavaju resurse i prodaju oružje u Africi. Oni izazivaju podjele među ljudima u Africi kako bi ih mogli kontrolirati.”

      Osim što prozivaju profitere i one koji omogućavaju represiju nad migrantima, ove kolektivne akcije dale su i hrabrost mnogim ranjivim migrantima da progovore, zatraže svoja prava i budu solidarni sa svojim drugovima. Pokret radi zajedno s La Chapelle Deboutom, kolektivom za prava koji djeluje u Parizu posljednjih pet godina fokusirajući se na pomoć migrantima da dobiju pristup stanovanju i zdravstvenoj zaštiti, odupirući se deportacijama i baveći se drugim administrativnim pitanjima. Crni prsluci također rade kako bi se udružili sa Žutim prslucima, pokretom koji je inspirirao njihovu borbu.

      Ahmed Abdul Karem, sudanski izbjeglica, izjavio je nakon demonstracija protiv Air Francea: „Izbjeglice se mora tretirati dobro, kao ljudska bića. Europa je odgovorna za probleme u Africi. Europa iskorištava Afriku. Mi smo ovdje samo da bismo preživjeli, a ipak nas ne tretiraju kao ljudska bića. U priopćenju objavljenom na protestu u petak, Crni prsluci poručuju: “Mi se ne borimo samo za dokumente već i protiv sustava koji nas stavlja u ovaj položaj”.

      http://radnickaprava.org/tekstovi/novosti/crni-prsluci-nedokumentirani-migranti-bore-se-za-prava-i-dostojanstvo