Moroccan Man Fights Deportation, Seeks Residence Permit with French Wife

Aziz’s beginnings in France date back to 2009. He remains there without a visa and meets Mathilde in 2013. This idyll is disrupted as early as the following year, as Aziz is taken by police to Toulouse to be sent back to Morocco, his country of origin. However, the mistake here, recalls lepopulaire.fr, is that "the notification of the obligation to leave the territory is not actually addressed to him, and the administrative court will indeed cancel this decision".

Despite this, Aziz will be forced to leave the territory by force, but he strongly opposes it. This attempt will be followed by several days of custody from which, according to his lawyer, Maître Ouangari, "Aziz will emerge with many injuries observed by the Limoges University Hospital on December 29, 2014. To escape again this scenario of forced repatriation, Aziz will hide at his sister’s in Lyon. Far from all these events, Mathilde who had no news of her companion during all this time, finally got tired of their relationship.

"I had suffered a lot, I told myself that in the end he was just an asshole like the others, so when he came back to see me at my restaurant, I didn’t want to listen to him. He sent me letters, messages, he called me, he didn’t let go. But I was hurt and I didn’t want to believe his story. And then one day I told him that I would soon be leaving Limoges. He said to me ’don’t leave, marry me’," says Mathilde.

In court, it is Hélène, Mathilde’s sister, who bears a rather touching testimony on the situation: "They really love each other, you know. The marriage was thought out, they had known each other for more than 5 years. They just want to spend their lives together." It is precisely this love that nourishes in all of them the hope of a new appreciation of Aziz’s file.