Migrants from Middle East, North Africa in France wait for months as Ukrainians get preferential treatment

PARIS (AA) – The number of migrants in France has been explosively high for more than 20 years. They have fled their countries because of wars and poverty, trying to get to the UK to join families and friends or find work.

The city of Calais, with its port and the Channel Tunnel, is the best crossing point and the symbol of “a better life opportunity.”

Often arriving in a state of exhaustion, migrants attempt many crossings, putting their lives in danger.

“I tried a lot of times, about 15 or 20 times. Some people had their legs cut off, others died,” a refugee from Sudan shared.

However, a radically different picture emerged when the Ukraine-Russia war began. Discriminatory and preferential treatment surfaced in the reception. Asylum application processing of white Ukrainians was accelerated and efficient administrative procedures were introduced.

The first step for Ukrainian refugees once they are in France is the checking of identity documents by the perfecture of Paris. If everything is in order, they are immediately issued a temporary residence permit for six months, renewable for three years.

The protection system also gives these migrants privileges, including the right to work and obtain health coverage immediately.

On the other hand, Muslim asylum seekers from the Middle East, Asia and North Africa have, since 2019, been subject to an arduous three-month wait before they can even begin to benefit from social security.

When Afghans fled the Taliban in August 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron complained: “Europe cannot bear the consequences of the current situation alone.

“We must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows,” he said.

Six years earlier, during the humanitarian crisis generated by the Syrian civil war, some organizations asked the then-President Francois Hollande and other European countries to help and work in favor of temporary protection for the refugees escaping for their very lives. Those requests were never heeded to.

In Calais, the situation appears to be difficult and inhumane. In a camp 30 minutes from the city’s center, a migrant said: “You can’t find any Ukrainians here with us. They are all living and sleeping in houses. We suffer from cold and rain and get warm by the fire.

“The government is offering all needed help to Ukrainians,” he added.

Since 2015, access to housing for non-white migrants has been one of the main battles led by associations.

As police evacuate migrants’ camps and seize tents, the 115 emergency number is saturated, leaving most in the streets night and day.

“We as associations are not jealous but all we want is equality. The government takes migrants in buses 120 kilometers away from Calais because they know that it is the closest to Britain’s borders,” said Mariam, a volunteer with the Secour Catholique association.

“One of them told me once that ‘animals live better than us as if we are garbage’,” said Mariam.

Many human rights observers have highlighted the inherent racist prejudice underpinning Western countries’ radically different approaches to deal with refugees from Ukraine as opposed to those from war-ravaged Muslim lands in Africa and Asia.