Les Sans-Papiers - place de la Bastille - June 2010 / November 2019
The gathering of people who demand their rights to live and work in France. The so-called : “les Sans-Papiers” (without papers) were camping at the Bastille plaza to call for their regulation. Their slogan was : “we work here ! we live here ! we stay here !”. By this story i tried to capture their looks and attitudes that were reflecting alternately : depression and hope, desperation and celebration, deception and motivation. I found all these opposed expressions on their faces, in their behavior and through their dance, keeping their spirits high and fighting for their future against any expulsion.
The overexposed black and white pictures show these people about to be erased in case they are expulsed. On the other hand, they are also considered as refugees who are seeking a new start ; they travelled abroad to “rewrite” their new life like blank pages waiting to be filled.
For the philosopher Jacques Derrida : “The illegal immigrants" are not illegitimate (...) Most of them work and live, they have lived and worked in broad daylight during years (...) It is the injustice of the governmental repression towards them that often creates an illicit situation through where it is not.”