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Governing Borders in France: From Extraterritorial to Humanitarian Confinement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Chowra Makaremi
Chowra Makaremi
Affiliation:
Département d'anthropologie, Université de Montréal, CP 6128, Succ. Centre-ville, Montreal, QC H3C 3J7,[email protected]
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Abstract

In Western states, restrictive migration policies over the last 30 years have entailed a shift in the practices of control, leading to the institution of systems of detention at international borders. Border confinement raises substantial issues about fundamental rights; it involves questions of legality and legitimacy, and the definition of new technologies of government. In France, the origins of border detention show how pre-existing administrative practices of detention were legalized through the adoption of “waiting zones,” a new regime of detention that enhanced both conditions of detention and disciplinary control over detainees. This development confronts human-rights activists who have opposed border detention since the mid-1970s with “paradoxical gains” and a tough dilemma: the rights that have been granted by the state to travellers held at the borders are not enough, whereas legalization has opened the way for new control mechanisms. Understanding border confinement involves analysing these paradoxes produced by constant negotiations between the administration, willing to tighten control over its borders, and concerns of certain groups within civil society, willing to defend basic rights and give a legal framework to control practices. In France, the diffusion of penitentiary models of management and the ambiguities of law that this article explores further draw together the conditions for administrative processes of legal exclusion. What do such processes teach us about evolving regimes of government within rights-based liberal systems?

Résumé

Dans les états occidentaux, les politiques migratoires restrictives des trente dernières années ont entraîné un changement dans les pratiques de contrôle, menant à la construction d'institutions de détention aux frontières. L'incarcération aux frontières suscite un questionnement important à propos des droits fondamentaux, questions portant sur les notions de légalité et de légitimité ainsi que sur la définition des nouvelles technologies du gouvernement. En France, les origines de l'incarcération aux frontières démontrent comment des pratiques administratives préexistantes ont été légalisées à l'aide de l'adoption de « zones d'attentes », nouveau régime d'incarcération qui rehausse les conditions de détention ainsi que le contrôle disciplinaire sur les détenus. Pour les activistes qui font la revendication des droits humains et qui s'opposent à l'incarcération aux frontières depuis la seconde moitié des années 1970, ce développement représente des gains paradoxaux et un dilemme difficile : les droits accordés par l'État aux voyageurs incarcérés aux frontières ont demeurés insuffisants tandis que la légalisation a permis la création de nouveaux mécanismes de contrôle. L'étude de l'incarcération aux frontières implique une analyse des paradoxes créés par les négociations constantes entre, d'une part, une administration voulant resserrer son contrôle sur les frontières et, d'autre part, certains groupes civils dont les préoccupations incluent la défense des droits de base et l'encadrement légal des pratiques du contrôle. Les conditions des processus d'exclusion de l'administration légale sont soulignées, en France, par la diffusion des modèles de l'administration pénitentiaire et l'ambiguïté de la loi. Qu'est-ce que ces processus révèlent sur l'évolution des régimes gouvernementaux à l'intérieur de systèmes libéraux basés sur les droits?

Keywords

contrôle aux frontièresincarcération extraterritorialeétrangers non documentés et demandeurs d'asile dans l'Union européennemobilisation légaleborder controlextraterritorial confinementundocumented aliens and asylum seekers in the EUlegal mobilization
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 24 , Issue 3: The Dilemmas of Discretion/Dilemmes Discrétionnaires , December 2009 , pp. 411 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 2009

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References

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18 “Transit visas” are documents allowing travellers to travel via France during their flight to a third country. These “visas” are instituted by decree for a list of countries, corresponding to the list of main countries of origin of asylum seekers. This is why they have been identified as an important technique of bypassing Geneva Convention obligations to protect refugees (see note 19 below) and controlling asylum claims. See Beaudu, Gérard, “La politique européenne des visas de court séjour,” Cultures et conflits 50 (2003)Google Scholar. Indeed, since the institution of “transit visas,” the number of asylum claims has sometimes dramatically decreased, even as the conflict or political situation in the country of origin has not improved—quite the opposite, in fact.

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20 By default, it was then ruled by the international obligations of the state relating to the European Convention on Human Rights, 4 November 1950, Eur. T.S. 5, 213 U.N.T.S. 221, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 19 December 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171.

21 I thank Veronique Nahoum-Grappe (personal communication) for this expression.

22 See note 23 below.

23 Decret n° 82-442 pour l'application des articles 5, 5-1 et 5-3 de l'Ordonnance n° 45-2658 du 2 novembre 1945, J.O., 27 May 1982, 7225, art. 12.

24 Interior Ministry, Circulaire du 17 septembre 1986, INT/D/86/00338/C; Circulaire du 8 août 1987, INT/D/87/00224/C.

25 Ibid., Circulaire du 17 septembre [translated by author].

26 Within the Schengen Area, created by the Schengen Agreements, 25 European countries have abolished all internal border controls. The Schengen Agreements, signed in 1985 and expanded in 1997 and 1999, “abolished checks at the internal borders of the signatory States and created a single external border where immigration checks for the Schengen area are carried out in accordance with identical procedures. Common rules regarding visas, right of asylum and checks at external borders were adopted to allow the free movement of persons within the signatory States without disrupting law and order.” The Schengen Area and Cooperation (Europa 2009)Google Scholar, http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_security/free_movement_of_persons_asylum_immigration/133020_en.htm.

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28 Constitutional Council, Decision 92-307 DC, February 25, 1992, http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/root/bank_mm/anglais/a92307dc.pdf.

29 The latest modifications came with Loi n° 1631 du 20 novembre 2007 [Act on the control of immigration, integration and asylum], J.O., 21 November 2007, 1893.

30 Loi n° 92–625 du 6 juillet 1992 [Act on waiting zones in ports and airports], J.O., 9 July 1992, 9185 [translated by author; emphasis added].

31 Further discussion of these reports appears below in the section on mobilization against border detention.

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33 Interior Ministry, Circulaire du 9 août 1993, INT/D/93/00185/C [translated by author].

34 Ibid.

35 See also Makaremi, Chowra, “Alien Confinement in Europe: Violence and the Law. The Case of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France,” in The Literature of Concentration Camps, ed. Hogan, Colman and Marín-Dómine, Marta (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

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45 At the beginning, ANAFÉ comprised both NGOs—Amnesty International, the Cimade (Service Œcuménique d'Entraide), the COMEDE (Comité Médical pour les Exiles), the CAIF (Conseil des Associations Immigrées en France), France Terre d'Asile, the GAS (Groupe Accueil et Solidarité), the GISTI (Groupe d'Information et de Soutien des Immigrés), the LDH (Ligue des Droits de l'Homme), the MRAP (Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l'Amitié entre les Peuples)—and professional associations or unions—the Association of Lawyers for the Recognition of Fundamental Rights to Immigrants (ADDE), the CFDT Union of Air France employees, the CFDT Union of Paris airport employees, the union of civil aviation pilots, the unitary union of commercial flight attendants, the Paris regional association of CFDT Unions, and, last but not least, the CFDT Union of Frontier Police.

46 ANAFÉ, Zones d'attente des aéroports et des gares ferroviaires—visite des associations habilitées. Rapport 1998—1999 (ANAFÉ, 2000), http://www.anafe.org/download/rapports/rapport98-99.pdf.

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56 Let us note here that the indefinite duration of detention, which was one reason for condemning French border detention as a violation of art. 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, still applies today to immigration detention centres in Quebec, Canada, where some asylum seekers have been held for up to 21 months (the French administration limited border detention to 20 days in 1992, as mentioned above). In Ontario, too, Pratt, Securing Borders, has found that a substantial number of those detained in “temporary” facilities were “long-term” detentions.

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64 “Retention” is another euphemistic system of detention, equivalent to “holding” at the borders, for sans-papiers awaiting deportation. In France, the detention that takes place at the port of entry is organized by specific legislation and structures that are complementary to, but separate from, other apparatuses of alien confinement such as detention centres for sans-papiers.

65 Salas, “Incriminés, discriminés.”

66 Author's field notes, interview with Ms B., March 31, 2005 [translated by author].

67 Ibid. [translated by author].

68 Ibid.

69 The institution of border detention for asylum seekers and a specific system of asylum examination in the waiting zone pending a decision by police is an exception, and appears particularly restrictive compared to other situations in the European Union.

70 Author's field notes, interview with Mr S., March 16, 2005 [translated by author]. On the question of legal resistance and legitimacy and the issue of “involuntary legitimation” of lawyering see Ellman, Dean, “Struggle and Legitimation (Symposium: Lawyering in Repressive States),” Law and Social Inquiry 20 (1995)Google Scholar.

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73 Ibid.

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