Paper details

Paper authors	Marlies Casier and Robin Vandevoordt
In panel on	Resisting Border Violence: The Role of Civil Society, Local Actors, and Researchers
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Since the dismantlement of the ‘Jungle of Calais’, France has actively sought to uproot any attempts of People on the Move to set-up make-shift camps along the French-British border. Every 48h hours police seize tents and chase people out of their living sites, while trees are cut and boulders are strategically positioned to prevent the distribution of material aid. In this paper we show how, in response to this zero-fixation policy, some NGOs have shifted from providing humanitarian aid to more contentious forms of resistance. Hence they began to systematically monitor evictions, to collect testimonies of human rights violations, and to launch legal inquiries into the illegality of evictions. By collaborating strategically with the national ‘Observatoire des Expulsions’ – which hitherto focussed only on expulsions of Roma living sites –, and by pulling in national and international Human Rights Commissioners to critically inquire the French government about its policies, these NGOs have also up-scaled their strategies of resistance to the national level.

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