Tourist in spite of herself. Arrived in October in France, like thousands of her compatriots fleeing the war, Tetiana, a 22-year-old Ukrainian, comes up against the wall of the administration about her status. This preposterous story, revealed by our colleagues from France 3is told in detail in a online petition by the Northerner who currently hosts the young woman.
Before the start of the war, Tetiana was studying tourism in her country. At the end of 2021, his university allowed him to do a sort of internship in a hotel in a ski resort in Bulgaria. A few months later, when the Russian offensive began, the hotel management offered some students, including Tetiana, to work in an establishment of the same chain, in Sunny Beach, on the Bulgarian coast. A job that she accepts but which ends with the end of the season, at the beginning of October 2022. Without resources or accommodation, the young woman must then return to Ukraine. What her family refuses, the city in which she lives, Severodonetsk, being one of the privileged targets of the army of Vladimir Putin.
Tetiana did not flee the war
Tetiana’s brother therefore calls on Grégory, a northerner, met during a humanitarian mission, to welcome his little sister. He accepts and the student arrives at his home, in Gravelines, near Dunkirk, on October 7, 2022. Tetiana is quickly enrolled at the university to prepare for a diploma, a process which allows her in particular to learn French and to better integrate. At the same time, his French host, supported by the “Dunkirk Ukraine” association, tries to make him obtain the precious status of “temporary protection” to which all Ukrainian refugees who have fled the war are entitled. Except that it gets stuck, precisely because strictly speaking, Tetiana did not flee the war since she arrived directly from Bulgaria.
The young woman is therefore considered by the authorities as a tourist and, in fact, does not benefit from health insurance, the right to an asylum seeker’s allowance or the right to work. According to Grégory, the options available are absurd and the procedures long and tedious. He therefore began a hunger strike in early February to try to make the administration listen to reason.