Undocumented Immigrant’s Heroic Rescue of Mother and Baby Sparks Debate on Regularization in France

"It was an ordinary Sunday, around 4:30 in the morning, when my wife and I heard horrible screams. I opened the door to see what was happening," recounts Arzki Benazouaou to the newspaper Le Parisien.

That evening, his neighbor narrowly escaped being killed by her husband, a formidable man, armed with a bladed weapon. She and her 10-month-old baby, nestled in her arms, were saved thanks to Arzki’s intervention.

"I didn’t think about it: I pulled her by the arm behind my door which I slammed shut. There was blood everywhere in the entrance, in my living room and on my sofa," continues Arzki in his testimony.

Later, the emergency services, contacted by Arzki and his wife, will try to recover the neighbor, "seriously injured in the neck", and her baby with "a deep cut on the cheek". As for the aggressor, he ends up being neutralized by the police with a taser gun.

Arrived in France since 2017, Arzki who is a former lawyer at the Tizi Ouzou bar (Algeria) has become an undocumented immigrant since the expiration of his visa in September 2018.

But, according to his lawyer, Salim Ben Hamidane, "according to the Code of Asylum Law, the law provides for exceptional admission to residence. This gives him the right to regularization by prefectural decision. This has already happened with Mamoudou Gassama, the migrant who had saved a baby, for example, in May 2018".

In the wake of his heroic act, Arzki was welcomed at the National Assembly by the LREM deputy of Essonne, Pierre-Alain Raphan, and received a letter of support from his mayor and the DVG senator, Olivier Léonhardt.

However, the final decision rests with the Prefect of Essonne. "I did a service to the community, I would like to have a response. I would be disappointed in case of refusal," admits Arzki.