Jean-Claude Onana does not understand what is happening to him. This Cameroonian lyric singer who has been studying singing at the Chambéry conservatory for almost two years is threatened with expulsion. He received an OQTF, an Obligation to leave French territory last March, even though he claims to have done everything according to the rules. Supported by Cimade, this 34-year-old bass baritone is just asking for the right to stay in France to realize his dream: to become a professional singer. This Wednesday evening, a support concert is organized at the Cité des Arts in Chambéry to publicize its cause and help it on a daily basis.
Only one dream: to become a professional singer
Jean-Claude Onana arrives in Marseille in 2022. It is there that he must take singing lessons at the conservatory. He started singing in Cameroon and he wants to make it his job. “My mother already sang in choirs. I loved his voice. In church all the time, there was the classical choir where we sang works by Handel, great classics. And I started to get passionate, to follow the voices of these people. I said that’s my voice. I must shine in the world, I must sing.”
Arriving in Marseille, the person who was supposed to accommodate him failed. This is how the thirty-year-old arrived in Chambéry to live with his sister. Precariousness begins, he puts all his savings into going back and forth to Marseille. “It was very expensive. It was too hard for me and I went through hell. In the end, I slept at the Marseille station to save on journeys. It was too difficult and that’s how I ended up in Chambéry“, he says.
A visitor visa instead of a student visa
And quickly, It’s a scam on my face. Unlike foreign comrades like him who have a student visa, he ends up with a visitor visa. “There are many Cameroonian students or other countries who came like me and who are in conservatories in Paris for example. But what is surprising is that they were able to get a student visa and I am the only one who got a visitor visa. And that’s often what makes me suffer, I did everything according to the rules.”.
Et last March 15, it was the hammer blow : “I received an OQTF, that I must not stay on French territory. The sky fell on my head“Since then, Jean-Claude Onana has lived in fear of being deported.”I’m afraid all the time when I walk in the street, I’m afraid of being controlled. It’s a situation that we never imagined in life to find ourselves without papers.“
“Jean-Claude never hid that he wanted to come and study”
For Gérard Gomès-Léal, from the Cimade association which accompanies him, it is incomprehension. “Jean-Claude did not improvise as a lyric singer. He never hid that he wanted to come and study. He had provided his registration certificate and all his school results. It was supported by the management of the two respective conservatories, by the professors who speak of a diamond that remains to be cut. His visa story is clearly a mistake. He should have had a student visathere he was issued a 12-month visitor visa, it’s incomprehensible.”
Same feeling of injustice among her lyrical singing teacher at the Chambéry conservatory, Marie-Hélène Ruscher: “we were challenged by this voice. And then we carried out lots of lyrical projects. Many people were able to hear it. It’s a very beautiful voice, very great potential and it’s a situation that touches me, which also revolts me.“
A support concert “Visa pour un talent”
Faced with the situation of this Cameroonian student, solidarity is being organized, notably with this support concert this Wednesday evening at the Cité des Arts. “We said to ourselves that this was a real injustice and that something had to be done. So they decided together to do a concert, with the students, the management of the Conservatory with the approval of the municipality which has already intervened with the prefect, but without result. They obtained authorization to do this support concert which is called “Visa pour un talent”. We request a visa so that this talent can express itself. This is a concert that will be free entry. We propose a recipe to the hat and the recipe will be for Jean-Claude so that he can continue to eat, to live, to dress until he makes another decision“, explains Gérard Gomès-Léal.
And Jean-Claude Onana hopes to obtain a favorable judgment from the Grenoble administrative court so that the prefecture can re-study his case.
The concert in support of this Cameroonian lyrical singer is planned at 7:30 p.m. this Wednesday, November 27 at the Cité des Arts in Chambéry. When contacted, the Savoie prefecture told us that it never comments on OQTF files.
