” “The reasons of the "sans-papier"” “

Ever since the “sans-papier” (irregular immigrants) occupied the churches of Saint-Ambroise and Saint Bernard in Paris in 1996, the Catholic Church in France like others in Europe has been daily confronted by this problem for which a solution has still to be found; the problem is how to reconcile the needs of charity with the need to respect the dignity of churches. The last occupation took place on Sunday 15 September when 150 sans-papier entered the church of Saint-Ambroise, in the centre of Paris. It was 9.20 in the morning, a few minutes before the end of Sunday Mass. The parish priest immediately took in hand the situation and convinced the sans-papier to abandon the church for some hours. The choice of the place was not casual: it was in this same church that the first occupations had taken place in March 1996. This new occupation is therefore a sign that, six years after the first claims, the problems of immigrants without residence permits remain unchanged. French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy also intervened on the question: on 17 September he gave a signal of accommodation, ordering the prefects of the regions to re-examine the situations of regularization on a “case by case” basis. The bishop and the sans-papier. The Church of France is hoping that “the question of the sans-papier will be heard, taken seriously, and treated with justice and generosity”. Bishop Olivier de Berranger of Seine-Saint-Denis, president of the social Commission of the bishops of France, has made this appeal on behalf of the episcopate. It is in his diocese situated in the northern suburbs of Paris that 130 sans-papier, for the most part from the Maghreb, had taken refuge in the basilica of Saint-Denis on 17 August. After two weeks of occupation, the bishop asked them to leave: he considered that the cathedral “had played its part”. The sans-papier responded and abandoned the church on the following day. In a press-release issued in recent days, the diocese of Saint-Denis offered an explanation of its decision. “By accepting the presence of the sans-papier for a limited period of time, we wished to give a strong signal of communion… When this form of support came to an end, the Church has continued its work of support in various forms, as for example the involvement of Christians in the political parties, in the trades-unions and associations”. Drawbacks for the churches. “A church – points out Father Alain Bandelier, coordinator of Foyer de Charité and editor of the French Catholic weekly ‘Famille Chrétienne’ – is not a neutral place, it’s not a mere public place. Whether one likes it or not, believes in it or not, it has a strong symbolic charge. It’s a sacred place, not a public platform”. “When workers – says Father Bandelier – occupy their factory, when parents occupy their children’s school, when civil servants occupy the prefecture, there is a causal link, or at least a certain relation between the event, the group and the place”. But in the case of the occupation of churches, this relation risks creating “a general problem for a particular community”. That’s why efforts were made to avoid this in the church of Saint-Nizier, an important parish in Lyons: the priest and the community asked the occupants to remove from the church and occupy a parish hall instead. The position of the French government. In a meeting with Bishop De Berranger, the minister of the interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, made it known that the French government is keen to reach a solution on a “case by case” basis, with “humanity and realism”, rejecting categorically any blanket regularization, as requested by the coordination of the sans-papier. Meanwhile the occupations are multiplying. Some weeks ago at Roubaix, in the north of France, the parish of Saint Martin was occupied by groups of Guineans, while in June some thirty sans-papier from Mauritania, Senegal and Turkey entered the small church of Sainte-Geneviève des Bois, near Paris. To show their determination, a protest march of irregular immigrants took place in the capital on Sunday, 1st September, starting out from the basilica of Saint-Denis and ending up in the Place du Trocadero.