A new movement in Paris is using slogans pasted onto the walls of Paris buildings to highlight the "dramatic" situation of hundreds of unaccompanied minors who live on the street. "Collages Refugees" was created at the beginning of March 2021.
Stella has taken up the cause of unaccompanied foreign minors in Paris. "They are invisible. It's dramatic what happens to them. We wanted to make these invisible people visible," the 23-year-old explains to InfoMigrants.
Along with about 40 other people, Stella launched a movement "Collage Refugees" in March. The concept is similar to that of "Collages Féminicides", a movement Stella also belongs to. "We use the same technique: We paint messages on large sheets of paper, letter by letter, and paste them on the walls of Parisian buildings. The only visual difference is that this time the letters are all red."
Like "Collages Féminicides", the messages are hard-hitting and political, with the intention of catching the attention of people passing by in order better to inform public opinion.
"Who do you think is funding the Libyan coast guard?" reads the message on one wall in the French capital. This poster is a direct accusation at the European Union, which has been funding and training Libyan maritime forces since 2017 to intercept migrant boats at sea and bring them back to Libya.
Other equally direct messages read: "We have ransacked their country, let's welcome them with dignity." Or: "I crossed 13 countries alone, I'm afraid. Bilal, 15 years old."
Stella, who has just finished her law degree, felt it was urgent to act now. A volunteer in a migrant aid association, the young woman is critical of what she calls the "incompetence" of the Red Cross structure called 'le Demie', which is responsible for assessing the minority of foreign minors arriving in Paris.
According to Stella, the majority of young people who pass through 'le Demie' are sent straight back out onto the street in less than an hour, "often in as little as 15 minutes." Many are not officially recognized as minors and are considered de facto adults in the eyes of the French state.
"I've seen incredible things, young people who have been told: "You didn't show enough emotion when you talked about the death of your parents, this maturity doesn't fit with your young age," or "You show too much maturity when you talk about your crossing of the Mediterranean. It doesn't fit with being a child."
Posters torn down
Some minors even leave 'le Demie' "without understanding that their case has been rejected. They don't have interpreters and these children don't understand anything," Stella explains angrily. She hopes that her movement's posters "will persuade the big media to talk about these abandoned young people" in the streets of the capital.
For the moment, due to a lack of manpower, the slogans are only visible in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, next to 'le Demie', and in the Belleville district (20th arrondissement).
Some posters have not stood the test of time. "The slogans that were stuck around 'le Demie' were all torn down a few hours after they were put up," says Stella. "The others, the ones that talk about exiles in general, exiled trans women, have not been damaged".
In France, unaccompanied minors (MNAs) are taken into the care of the department when their minor status is officially recognized. Otherwise, they find themselves on the streets with no accommodation, no protection and no future prospects.