Photos in the slideshow:
Black and white all rights reserved by Zoltán Molnár
Color all rights reserved by Marie Telling

Not your ordinary newspaper vendor, Ali Akbar is a local celebrity in the affluent boulevard Saint Germain of Paris. In search of a better life, Ali left Pakistan at a tender age and has now lived for 40 years in France. Initially an illegal immigrant, Ali finally gained the right to stay in France when François Mittérand’s government pursued retroactive regularisation of illegal migrants in the 1980′s. His humorous headlines (“Sarkozy assassiné! Sarkozy assassinated!”) and emblematic personality has won him much popularity in the quarter, an asset which has helped him build a life in France. He is now father of five sons and the author of two autobiographies which have been translated into more than 10 languages. Ali’s first book and the one he is best known for – Je fais rire le monde… mais le monde me fait pleurer! – traces his journey from Pakistan to France. In 2011, the district council of the 6th arrondissement held a poll asking residents to nominate the “Loved Ones” of the quarter. The only foreign nominee, Ali emerged with the most votes. His portrait has been immortalized on the wall of a building on rue du Four (location). He is the success story every debate on illegal immigrants has difficulty imagining. I spend an afternoon with Ali on his daily route to document his life as a newspaper vendor and his longstanding popularity in the quarter.

Life for illegal immigrants is an ordeal. The French Ministry for Immigration estimated that between 200 000 and 400 000 illegal migrants (in french) have illegally entered the French territory in 2005 . They face the constant fear of deportation and often hesitate to turn toward doctors when in need of care. Money is an additional issue. The French legislation has taken the matter into consideration. The State Medical Aid, the ‘Aide Médicale d’Etat’ (in french) created in January 2000, allows people in irregular situations to access medical treatment, free of charge. There are conditions : illegal migrants have to live in France for at least three months, to have an income inferior to 634 euros per month and, since the law reform of March 2011, over-age persons have to pay 30 euros a year. One AME can benefit to other members of a family such as spouses and children. The International Convention on the Rights of the Child of the UNICEF, ratified by France, specifies that minors must be granted unlimited access to medical care, even if the three months threshold has not been reached.

‘Médecins du Monde’ (Doctors of the World) insist that such a parallel health care system is a necessity. However, they fear that its current form might be used as a weapon to control and reduce immigration, as the conclusions of the Health for Undocumented Migrants and Asylum Seekers (HUMA, dissolved in 2011) suggest. This network, created by ‘Médecins du Monde’ in partnership with 16 NGOs, has worked on the topic in 2010 and has summarized the accessibility to health care in France and 15 other European countries.

Source : HUMA network, Are undocumented migrants and asylum seekers entitled to access health care in the EU? A comparative overview in 16 countries, (2009-2010)

Guillaume Wasmer is the local delegate in Paris for the ‘Fédération Hospitalière de France’ (in french), an association of public health actors. He supports the concept of AME: “It guarantees that there are no remaining fees for public hospitals. We don’t ask for a credit card when people need to be treated, we send the bills to the national health insurance.” Without the setting up of the AME, the insurance would refuse to reimburse the fees. “As a consequence, we would end up with unrecoverable debts”, Guillaume Wasmer clarifies.

However, the conditions for the AME (residence and cost) can not be fulfilled by all illegal migrants. There is an alternative solution : the ‘Permanence d’Accès aux Soins de Santé’ (in french). The ‘PASS’ are community health centres where people without health insurance can seek help from doctors. Pascal Le Gall, who works in a PASS in Thionville, in the North-East of France, explains: “We sometimes see undocumented migrants. We cannot offer much treatment in a PASS, we do general medicine. But between zero and three months (before the AME), it can be a solution.”

‘PASS’ centres also operate as a gateway towards specialists or hospitals if immediate treatment is required. The notion of urgency is difficult to determine, Pascal Le Gall admits: “We are no managers, we are doctors. Our appreciation of urgency often differs from the administrators’ appreciation… A dental abscess is not a life threatening prognosis, but the pain is terrible. As doctors, we are meant to provide some relief. The medical conscience always wins.”

Emergency rooms and public hospitals are also encountering issues when dealing with foreign patients, issues which complicate the efficiency of treatment. Julie Kowalczyk (24), a medicine student in her fifth year, explains that in such situations, the language barrier is the first obstacle of medical care:

More than 200 000 people were able to seek medical help in 2010 (in french) thanks to the AME. Despite the support of health care professionals, the legitimacy of the system is constantly questioned by french right-wing representatives. The costs, which are rising each year (in french) are starting to draw attention to the system and the UMP, the majority right-wing party, is trying to reduce its application scale. Several french politicians are even suggesting to suppress the AME once and for all, like Marine Le Pen from the extreme-right party Front National (in french) in her presidential campaign programme. Doctors won’t ask for credit cards, but someone has to pay the bill. In 2012, the budget for the AME has been estimated to 588 millions of euros (in french).

By Marine Marck

Ms. Carballo in front of her loge. Photo by Aurelien Breeden

Remedios Carballo says she felt like a stranger back in her hometown, a small countryside village in the Pontevedra province, just above the Portuguese border. “Over there, everybody looks at me and says: you’ve been away for forty-three years,” exclaims the 63 year-old Spanish concierge in the 17th district of Paris. “You’re not from Spain, you’re from Paris!”

Ms. Carballo is one of many Spanish migrants who came to France several decades ago to look for work. But unlike others who went back to Spain and continued their lives there, she stayed, and founded a family in the French capital, which she now calls home. “For me, Paris is my city, it’s my village!” she says in the main room of her loge.

A short, plump and extremely talkative lady, Ms. Carballo came to France in 1969 when she was twenty years old, following the footsteps of her siblings. “We came to France because there was nothing in Spain, there was so much poverty,” she says, which prompted many from her village to migrate. “Everybody my age came to Paris.”

France has a long history of Spanish immigration, most notably during the Spanish Civil War. But the arrival of Iberian migrants truly peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, when young Spaniards like Ms. Carballo came to France hoping to find work. Today there are still 257 315 Spanish-born residents in France, but back in 1968 the community was more than twice that size with 607 184 people.

“There were meetings of Spaniards near Place de l’Etoile [near the Champs Elysées],” explains Ms. Carballo. “Everybody came, to get to know each other and talk together.” After a few years as a house aid in the 8th district of Paris and then near the Eiffel Tower, she got married with another Spaniard she met in Paris, and settled in the 17th when she found a job replacing another Spanish concierge. She’s been on Avenue de Wagram ever since, and at number 76 for the last 28 years. “It’s my whole life!” she says.

All photos by Aurelien Breeden

Spanish Nationality, Parisian Heart

A 2005 study published in the European Revue of International Migrations (REMI) showed that many of the Spanish women who came to France worked as concierges or house aids, and in 1999 the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) found that 41 % of Spanish women living in Ile-de-France worked as personal service workers. Before becoming a concierge, Ms. Carballo cleaned, shopped and cooked for a French family, which eventually helped her get documents. “It was complicated, even though there was more work than today,” she says. “It took six months.”

A ring at the door interrupts her. The man living on the fifth floor comes to see if anything can be done about the apartment above, which is currently hosting rowdy teenager parties in the absence of any parental supervision. But problems in the building are rare, says Ms. Carballo when she comes back. “Everybody loves me!” She laughs. “I’m a very cheerful person.”

Life in France was not always easy, even though Ms. Carballo was able to send money back to her parents as planned. “My husband worked for the Postal Service for 30 years, and he made almost nothing,” she laments. “In 1972, we started making 900 francs every three months,” the equivalent of 137 Euros today. After much struggle, her husband decided to go live on their country farm in Spain. Today Ms. Carballo lives alone in her small apartment but meets her husband during the winter holidays and he regularly sends freshly made chorizo, a spicy Spanish sausage.

Despite her decades of living in France, and even though she could ask to, she doesn’t want to become French. “My nationality is my nationality, you know,” she says, her dark, pulled-back hair contrasting with the white Bolognese dog she holds in her arms. “I am still from Spain.”

Her heart is still Spanish, but her home is definitely French. “In two years I am retiring. It’s difficult to go back to Spain. The children are in Paris, the grand-children are in Paris too,” says Ms. Carballo. She toys with the possibility of going home and then buying something in the French capital. “It isn’t the same Spain. We used to be nice, to know our neighbors. They have changed. They are richer!” She laughs. “It’s going to be hard to leave Paris 17th!”

By Aurelien Breeden

At the SSEA law firm, lawyers only deal with cases related to the rights of foreigners. The lawsuits are extremely varied: residence permits, asylum demands, family reunion visas but also divorces and criminal cases. Balancing between the will to defend foreigners and the necessity of running a business is one of the main difficulties for Sylvain Saligari and the six other lawyers working with the firm.

A couple of streets from Beaubourg, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, the first story of a modern building is home to the offices of the SSEA law firm. The appartment was fitted out to accomodate four offices. Sylvain Saligari, one of the lawyers of the firm in his early 30s, sits at his immaculate wooden desk, waiting for his next client. A computer, a couple of files, and his business cards. On the metal shelves around him, hundreds of yellow files stacked neatly. Apart from the large window behind his chair, the shelves hide all of the walls in the office.

Each yellow file corresponds to one client, one foreigner asking for something from the French state. A lawyer can be a luxury for many foreigners who do not have a financial stability when they arrive in France. At SSEA, the standard rate is fifty euros for a fifteen minute meeting. For Sylvain Saligari however, most of the time, foreigners manage to hire a lawyer with whatever little financial aid they receive from their community “back home”.
In his job, the whole difficulty for him is to adjust his passion to the needs of running a business. His law firm maintains a strict “no payment, no defense” policy and Sylvain insists: “We’re a business. We don’t work for free”. At the same time, he admits that having a lawyer gives a considerable advantage once in court: “I really don’t know what becomes of those who can’t afford one”.

A profession of passion, the opinion is shared by Coralie, a young intern enjoying her first experience as a lawyer. After finishing Sciences Po, one of the best political science schools in France,  and obtaining a second Master’s degree in International Law, she decided to specialize in immigration law. More by interest than by greed of course. For her, the main problem is the “administrative meander” foreigners are faced with: endless queues, unexplained refusals, understaffed administrations… The situation is even worse once in court: “the basic assumption for foreigners seeking asylum is: you’re lying. That really is the feeling that we get as lawyers”.

Sylvain Saligari picks one of the hundreds of files stacked along the shelves, to show what situations the lawyers have to deal with everyday. Reihane Ataimoghadam, a young Iranian, came to France in 2009 to seek asylum. In a 14 page heart-wrenching account she recalls seven years of her life. She begins with her first arrest for being alone in a car with two male friends to end with her detention following anti-Ahmadinedjad protests. Under constant surveillance, she was also rejected by her father who believed, wrongfully, that she had lost her virginity before getting married.

Giving exact dates, she covers every aspect which could matter to the case including the gruesome details of whiplashes and sexual abuse by the authorities. The decision by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees (OFPRA) is no more than two paragraphs long: her story is “not very plausible” and her demand is rejected. It took her another year to hire a lawyer, have three different medical experts support her story and compile every possible document, before the National Court of Asylum granted her the right to stay in the country.

The law firm has to deal with a great variety of stories. Sylvain Saligari is interrupted mid-speech by a colleague with a phone in her hand.: “It’s from the family of the kid who’s in jail for rape”. The lawyer takes it, spends three minutes on the phone, and immediately welcomes a new client.
The short, plump Cameroonian who walks in for his first meeting wants his wife and son to join him in France, where he has been for 8 years. He has his own apartment and earns two thousand euros each month, more than the median salary. A month ago his demand for a family reunion visa was rejected on the grounds that he couldn’t support his family, an “incomprehensible” decision for the lawyer. “If you have the financial means, I suggest we go to court” insists Sylvain. For his client, the only important thing is to have his family join him in France: “What odds would you give me?”. “If you’re telling me the truth about your situation, about 80%”. Sylvain Saligari seems very confident about this particular case, he sees it as a clear win for him and his client. A rare delight for both parties.

By Hugo Leenhardt

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Buon-Huong TAN arrived in France when he was eight-years-old. Now 40-years-old, he is the deputy mayor of the 13th district in Paris and the first political figure from the Chinese community in Paris.

A man with a gregarious personality, he stood up to his parents’ expectations who fondly named him as Chen Wenxiong, a Chinese name that means polished talents and grand ambition. He comes from a family of Chinese descendants who fled the political persecution from Cambodia in 1975.

“My family possessed a flourished family business in Cambodia, but here in Paris, we were obliged to start all from the beginning.” Recounting his past, Wenxiong doesn’t show that much of bitterness.  They were poor but  his family was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of his education.

After his master’ degree in University of Paris 1, the ambitious young man went abroad before taking over the family tea business in Paris. “ He is such a warm-hearted friend of constant good temper and is always willing to help others”, as noticed Zhixin, former director of Xingdao Journal in Paris.  His popularity among the Asian community in Paris and his excellent connaissance of two cultures drew the attention of M. Goumet, a French socialist party member, eager to include an Asian face in his party’s list for the local elections in 2008.

“My grandfather was suspicious of the offer, and believed that it would compromise the family business.” confess Chenxiong. Yet, he doesn’t buy into this obsolete opinion.  “Our Asian people had been devoted silently to business for a long time, the Arab and African community both have their political visibility in France, if we don’t have an elected representative, how can our voice be heard here? ”

In the 2008 local elections, an Asian name in the list of candidates  drew in plenty of votes from the 13th arrondissement of Paris, known equally as China Town. Following the result, both the right and the left wing tried to win his support. Thoughtful and farsighted, Wenxiong made a choice to stand for elections as an independent candidate. His name was registered in the extension Socialist list. In 2008, the left wing won the election with an overwhelming majority, 67%, a historic number!  Since then, he becomes the first vice mayor of Asian origin in France, while continuing his tea business.

When asked about the political preference of Asian descents in France.  Wenxiong remains extremely careful and talks about the reasons of voting for left and for right. (check the audio)  Despite his neutral political position, he encourages every French of Asian descent to vote massively for the coming presidential elections. No matter for which party they vote. “ What’s essential for us is to break this political silence and to show the power of our solidarity.”

Left or right? A businessman or a politician? All at the same time, since moderation is the golden mean of Confucian school, “Above all” emphasizes him “I’m of Chinese descent”.  “I felt sad when seeing the American born Chinese claim they are American and can not speak one Chinese word. If our children don’t learn Chinese,they will certainly lose touch with their roots and China. It’s a great pity!” As a matter of fact, he plans to promote the Chinese language in 13th arrondissement via various universities in a bid to ensure Chinese learning for the Asian descent from the age of six.

“I dream of building a sign board at entrance of ‘China town’. I’ll try my best to fulfill this dream before the end of my mandate in 2014”

By Ruolin Yang 杨若麟

By Rémi Noyon

On the first floor of a 14th district tall building, a series of bells, each associated to a different name, appears next to an old fashioned main door.  Once an elegant apartment, the place was converted into several medical cabinets. This is where Toshi Ichikawa, Japanese practitioner and instructor of Shiatsu, receives his patients.

Toshi and his patient’s shoes are waiting outside a door in the white corridor. His cabinet is a simple carpeted room. The lamp on the wooden table softly lights up the cream walls. The place is warm and peaceful. “ We each have our own consultation cabin and we share the spare large room, for instance, to give classes”, explains the Shiatsu practitioner.

“I happened to start my practice by chance”, recounts Toshi. Though he has practiced Shiatsu since childhood, he did not imagine becoming a professional, the massages had always been a side activity. He moved to Paris from Japan in 1998 and did not start his practice until 2005, when he took over that of another shiatsu professional who wanted to retire. He also bought his colleague’s clientele.

He remembers the difficulties he faced at his beginnings: “Some clients left because my Shiatsu was different to that of the previous practitioner, but others stayed and then word of mouth did the rest”.

Generally, Toshi’s patients are not people specifically interested in Japanese culture. Some people see him because they have trouble relaxing, Shiatsu can help them deal with stress or anxiety. Others sometimes have muscular pains. “Western medicine is limited for some types of problems such as back ache, explains the Japanese, after having seen a doctor, an osteopath and a physiotherapist, they try Shiatsu”.

France is known to be one of Europe’s largest medicine consumer. Though alternative medicine is tolerated, it is difficult for this practice to find a place in such a context. “I think that in France, what is not considered as science, does not benefit from much credit”, says Toshi.

Nevertheless, he has the feeling the situation is evolving: “People are more reluctant to take medicine systemically”. Indeed, they create a form of dependence and often have side effects, which can sometimes appear years later.

If shiatsu manages to solve people’s health problems, they appreciate this unconventional method. “That is all people are looking for: something efficient”, comments Toshi, “Never mind whether it is an occidental method or a traditional foreign one”.

Despite some fluctuations, today, his clientele is stable. Around seven o’clock the final consultation of the day comes to its end. The last patient puts her shoes back on before leaving. It is time for Toshi to turn off the little light of his cabinet.

By Vanessa Carronnier Scott

By Audrey Dufour