PARÍS. Corresponsal.

Si una posibilidad tenían los inmigrantes sans papiers (sin papeles) y sus hijos franceses de ser regularizados en Francia, era gracias al clima de comunión colectiva por el espíritu de unidad que ha creado la selección francesa en el fútbol. Hasta el jefe de Policía, Yanick Blanc, había anunciado que habría miles de familias regularizadas.

Pero un día después, el ministro del Interior Nicolas Sarkozy decidió hacer equilibrio entre la compasión solidaria y sus necesidades electorales. Desautorizó al jefe de la Policía y aseguró que "los que hablan de cifras, hablan de asuntos de los que no saben". Sus ojos están puestos en su futuro electorado de derecha, que rechaza a los inmigrantes.

"Nosotros sabemos que vamos a regularizar a varios miles", había admitido el jueves Yanick Blanc en una entrevista con Le Monde. Pero hizo la diferencia entre las masivas regularizaciones del Gobierno socialista de Lionel Jospin en 1997 y 1998 con las actuales.

Sarkozy, por su parte, aseguró un día después que no habrá regularización masiva sino un "examen caso por caso", que podría beneficiar a mil doscientas familias aproximadamente.

Las primeras deportaciones ya se han iniciado. Un avión charter partió el jueves a la mañana con sesenta rumanos a bordo, en la primera ola de expulsados. Un estudiante secundario marroquí de diecinueve años, se convirtió en el primer joven escolarizado en ser expulsado. Abdallah Boujraf había llegado a Francia hace cinco años.

La triste saga mediática de los inmigrantes sans papiers se inició cuando el 30 de junio terminó el año escolar en Francia y comenzó "la caza de los chicos". Una frase elegida por las organizaciones que protegen a los inmigrantes, para explicar cómo la policía podía llevar a la frontera y deportar a las familias con hijos en edad escolar, que residían ilegalmente en Francia.

Una nueva ley de inmigración privilegia la "inmigración elegida" contra la económica. Familias de ilegales africanas y sudamericanas son las más afectadas. En un gesto para mostrarse más humano, Sarkozy aseguró que habría algunos "privilegiados" en su desgracia: las familias que tenían hijos en el jardín maternal o en la primaria, con más de dos años de residencia en Francia. Los chicos no debían hablar la lengua del país de origen de sus padres para ser regularizados.

Un movimiento solidario se estableció para esconder a los chicos y las familias que podrían ser deportadas. Miles de "padrinos" adoptaron a las familias en peligro para protegerlos y para forzar al Gobierno, mediante la presión mediática, a la regularización.

Las carpetas habían comenzando a apilarse en el Departamento de Policia, llevadas por franceses solidarios con los inmigrantes, cuando la selección de fútbol comenzó a ganar. El humor del país cambió y se sintieron orgullosos de este equipo, mayoritariamente formado por hijos de la inmigración, como el argelino Zinedine Zidane. Era evidente que al Gobierno no le quedaban mayores alternativas que la flexibilidad humanitaria.

Si Francia gana el Mundial (mañana), el margen de Sarkozy para aplicar su plan será mínimo. Y eso si alguno de los futbolistas mundialistas no hace un pedido público. Una demanda de Zidane, la figura más admirada por los franceses, el día que se despide del fútbol, destrozaría los planes del ambicioso ministro. Todo es posible. Nadie descarta incluso una amnistía del presidente Chirac, que es quien debe promulgar la nueva ley de inmigración y aún no lo ha hecho.

SUSAN BELL in Paris

A secret network of families across France has started hiding illegal immigrants and their children in a bid to save them from deportation.

The grassroots movement emerged after the centre-right government of Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, announced a crackdown on illegal immigration.

There are an estimated 400,000 so-called sans papiers - or without papers - in France. About 50,000 are believed to be children, most of whom are enrolled in the country's school system.

The government has given the children an amnesty to remain only until the end of this school year.

In a response reminiscent of the Second World War, when many French people hid Jewish children to prevent them being deported to Nazi death camps, many families and teachers are taking direct action.

They have vowed to hide the children in their homes, away from their parents, so they cannot be deported.

Under French law, it is illegal to deport children without their parents and vice-versa.

Amid highly publicised cases where police have gone into schools searching for children of illegal immigrants, the left-wing group Réseau Education Sans Frontiéres - or Education without Borders - has pledged to continue the fight, arranging for more families to hide children in danger of deportation as the end of term approaches.

Families who agree to hide children face a fine and possible prison sentence if caught, but they believe it is worth the risk.

"During the Second World War, people risked their lives to help and hide others - they were far braver than we are now," said one primary school teacher who is hiding boys aged seven and nine.

The children fled from the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo with their mother five years ago. Their father is dead and their mother's request for asylum was refused by the authorities leaving the family at risk of deportation.

"Even though we face a prison sentence or fine for doing this, we sometimes have to disobey the law and stand up against what our government is doing to these people. We can't just slam the door and pretend they don't exist," the teacher added.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the hard line interior minister, reacted to widespread protests about the government's plans to deport children earlier this month by announcing that children who only spoke French and had no ties with their country of origin would be allowed to stay.

But Human Rights groups say that only applies to a small minority of the children facing deportation. It is believed that only 800 children would qualify for clemency, leaving tens of thousands of others living in fear of deportation.

Immigration has become a hot topic of debate between the centre-right and the opposition Socialists in the run-up to next year's presidential elections.

In the French Senate yesterday, MPs and senators from Socialist and Green parties held a ceremony of support for the children at risk, saying that the start of the school holidays must not turn into "a hunt for children".

However, a government spokeswoman said the children "were being used as political hostages" by left-wing groups.

By Colin Randall in Lyons

Twelve-year-old Edi is Ecuadorian but speaks good French. He enjoys geometry, history and art and regards 11-year-old Valentin as his closest friend.

The two boys - "like two brothers", according to Valentin's mother - will be seeing even more of each other in the coming weeks.

As one of the symbols of an emotive campaign to save the children of illegal immigrants from being deported from France, Edi has moved in with his friend's family in a village outside Lyons.

Throughout France, scores of mostly middle-class parents are giving refuge to children of the so-called sans papiers - foreigners with no legal right to stay.

France, facing the same immigration pressures as neighbouring countries, wants to expel 26,000 immigrants this year and has passed a law imposing strict residency requirements.

With schools about to break up for summer, an official pause on enforcing expulsion orders is coming to an end. But in a highly organised operation that has been likened by some to the French Resistance's concealment of Jews in the Second World War, the Réseau Education Sans Frontiéres (RESF) pressure group is dispersing children to the homes of volunteers.

Activists accuse the interior minister behind the crackdown, Nicolas Sarkozy, of mounting a "child hunt" to court the anti-immigration vote in next year's presidential elections. They hope to block his plans by exploiting a law insisting that families can be deported only as a whole.

The campaign is gathering strength. Sympathetic Left-wing mayors are holding symbolic "adoption" ceremonies, in which parents promise shelter to children facing expulsion, while protest marches are staged almost daily. Airport workers have also threatened to disrupt forced deportations.

Edi, one of six children, has lived in France for five years. His "protectors" are Jean Riot-Sarcey, 59, who has a senior job in education, and his wife Sandrine, 34.

"He will spend the two months of the summer holidays with us as part of our family," said Mr Riot-Sarcey. "We want to force France to respect its philosophical and humanitarian values."

He claims that Edi and his siblings would be in danger of being kidnapped for forced labour or the illicit human organs trade if they were returned to Ecuador. "There are comparisons to be made between us and the people who hid Jews during the war, even if the consequences are not so grave," Mr Riot-Sarcey said.

While he did not risk prosecution for harbouring a child, he knows that he will be liable to fines or even imprisonment if he proceeds with plans to take in an adult next month.

Mr Sarkozy has said regional administrators will act "firmly but humanely" in examining each case for residency on merit.

Applicants must have been settled in France for at least two years. At least one child must be attending a French school and have no link with the country of his or her parents.

In the Lyons area alone, RESF supporters expect to be sheltering dozens of children during the school holidays. Across France, the figure may run into thousands. Valérie, 44, an actress who has taken in a 10-year-old boy, said her three children would be shocked and upset if Alex, one of two sons of an illegal immigrant from Azerbaijan, were taken from their home and expelled.

Alex's mother, Samira, and her children would be deported to Germany, the country from which they arrived in France and where they previously applied for residency.

RESF says this would inevitably lead to them being sent back via Russia to Azerbaijan where they risked persecution because of their Armenian origins.

Valérie said: "My gesture is not intellectually or politically driven, but a matter of instinct. What is happening is wrong. Alex is safe while he is in my house but I worry that he might be picked up when he is outside".

Clarín

The Scotsman

The Telegraph

Enlaces sobre Direitos Humanos