This town in Calvados takes action against clichés about migrants

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As part of the national Migrant'Scène festival, the screening of the film “The Story of Souleymane” at the Royal cinema in Condé-en-Normandie (Calvados) was followed by a debate with two volunteers from the local Cimade group from Caen.

This association's mission is to welcome, guide and defend migrants.

Three weeks of awareness

The Cimade festival “is a national operation, which lasts three weeks, from November 19 to December 3, 2024.

It raises awareness of the migratory cause through exhibitions, workshops, shows and screenings, in order to deconstruct prejudices and show the reality of migrant life », explains Sarah Jubert, speaker and volunteer at the local Cimade de Caen group.

The opening of this festival therefore took place in Condé-en-Normandie with the screening of Boris Lojkine's film: “The Story of Souleymane”.

In this scenario, Souleymane, a young Guinean, is an illegal worker for a meal delivery platform in Paris.

Daily life of an undocumented migrant

His interview to request asylum in France takes place in two days… Awarded at the Cannes Film Festival by the Best Actor Awardand by the Jury Prize the feature film tells the daily life of undocumented immigrants like a race against time.

The screening was followed by an exchange with Sarah Jubert and Fleur Bertrand-Montembault, volunteers from the local Cimade de Caen group.

For them, “this film is not a documentary, but a fiction which is fictionalized, but which partly reflects the reality on the ground”.

Access to rights and language

Sarah Jubert explains: “La Cimade is an association which helps people in exile for everything related to access to rights and access to language through sociolinguistic workshops. We ensure rights access hours once a week to help them with asylum applications or residence permits.”

The volunteers mainly work at the Ouistreham camp, mainly with around thirty Sudanese, “who are people with a complicated migratory journey, then a still difficult journey for their asylum application”.

Asylum application

This request for asylum allows them to benefit from the protection of France.

Their story is never the same, they must prove that they meet these criteria, that they are in danger. The interview with the Ofpra officer (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons) requires very detailed questions to verify the veracity of the facts.

Most of the Sudanese in the Ouistreham camp come from the persecuted ethnic groups of Darfur, many of them seeking asylum in France.

After the appointment at the prefecture and the fingerprinting, the French Office of Immigration and Integration must offer material reception conditions and the right to accommodation, but there are not enough.

Restrictive criteria

The criteria are very restrictive for the asylum request, “after a certain number of years in France in inequality and several residence permits, regularization can be hoped forfor reasons of private or family life or for work.”

For one of the speakers, “it depends on the migrant's journey, their settlement in France, their ability to prove that they have worked when they cannot work”.

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