Moroccan Teacher and Family Face Deportation from France over Visa Issues

Sofiane Dahir, a Moroccan national, his wife and their three children, are under threat of expulsion. The contract of this family man has not been renewed and his application for a residence permit in France has been refused, including on appeal, according to France 3.

The obligation to leave France would have been pronounced by the new prefect of the Corsican Republic, for this teacher of the Arabic language in Corsican primary schools since 2015, on a teaching mission under an agreement between Morocco and France.

According to Yves Carel, an active member of the Education Network Without Borders (RESF), this family met the conditions. And yet, it was apprehended on Tuesday morning at its home in Ajaccio and transferred to the Nîmes Administrative Detention Center. It still risks being deported to Morocco.

Informed of this unfair decision, migrant aid associations, including RESF and Forum, protest against the placement in a detention center of minor children. According to these human rights organizations, previous governments had put an end to this placement system. For Yves Carel, who met Dahir on Wednesday at the Nîmes CRA, the family was apprehended in Ajaccio "in a sudden and violent manner". Marked by this form of arrest of his family, the teacher expressed his fear and that of his family of being expelled to Morocco.