It’s a bad Christmas story that has played out over the last few days in La Rochelle. Ousmane Touré, a 23-year-old Guinean under an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) but working for several years, was deported to his country of origin on December 24. Two days earlier, he had not gone to his work as usual, at the Ginger restaurant in the capital of Charente-Maritime. And for good reason, South West says that during his three-weekly check-in at the police station, he was unable to leave. “A police officer came to tell me: ‘you have to be put in a detention center’ and he took away my phone,” Ousmane Touré tells France 3 New Aquitaine.
Things did not drag on: after a night in a detention center, he was sent to Bordeaux to be placed on a plane to Conakry, the capital of Guinea, from where he left in 2015. At the time, aged At the age of 15, he left his country when both his parents died “probably of Ebola”, explains Didier Meyerfeld, of the Solidarité Migrants association, to our colleagues from the local press. It was only in 2019 that he reached France and applied for asylum, which was rejected at the end of 2020. Except that in the meantime, Ousmane Touré began working in restaurants in La Rochelle. It is recommended to Carlos Foito, the boss of Ginger.
“Rigorous, irreproachable, adored wherever he went”
The restaurateur was very close to his employee, visibly a model: “Rigorous, irreproachable, adored wherever he went. (…) He called me dad, I called him son,” he tells France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine. A second OQTF which had been hovering over his head since the fall, Ousmane Touré could hope for regularization through work. Currently governed by the Valls circular of 2012, these conditions are opaque, generally at the discretion of the prefects. It is not uncommon for local elected officials or parliamentarians – from all sides – to push cases to the prefecture to ensure a positive outcome.
All appeals against the second OQTF were not exhausted when Ousmane Touré was sent off last weekend. “The deadlines are enormous,” notes Didier Meyerfeld. For the administrative court of Poitiers, there is between ten and twelve months of waiting. Ousmane was expelled after two months. »
The prefecture, led by Emmanuel Macron’s former chief of staff until the summer of 2023, Brice Blondel, is singled out. After having reacted sharply to requests from the local media (“her removal is (…) the consequence of the strict application of the right of residence”, as reported by France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine), she seems to change her position. State services in the department now say they are “sensitive” to Ousmane Touré’s situation. It must be said that his situation aroused a lot of emotion in La Rochelle, up to the support of the Mayor, Jean-François Fountaine (various left). According to Sud Ouest, a procedure is underway for the return of the Guinean, the matter is in the hands of the French embassy in Conakry.