"It’s like being at the prefecture," Zaef joked as he entered the France Médias Monde building (France 24, RFI, MCD), home to the InfoMigrants offices in Issy-les-Moulineaux (in the Paris region). The comedian had just been shuffled from one door to another before security guards allowed him to enter the building.

This joke sums up the obstacle-strewn journey in France of this 43-year-old African man. Since arriving in France in 2016 on a tourist visa, Zaef has spent the last 10 years trying to obtain legal status.

Zaef has been recounting his life as an undocumented immigrant in France for years in sketches he performs in comedy clubs or in his show, currently playing at the Parisian theater Le Point Virgule. For this man born in the Ivory Coast, humor has become a refuge and a weapon against loneliness. "Performing in front of people and laughing with them allows me to forget for a few hours that I don’t have documentation."

Sharing his struggles on stage several times a week is also a way for him to speak about other undocumented immigrants who don’t have this platform. "I never hid my immigration status. I was the freest undocumented immigrant in France," Zaef asserts.

But if he speaks in the past tense, it’s because his future in the country has suddenly turned bleak.

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'Everything stops after 10 years of living in France'

In March 2026, his application for regularization under the exceptional admission to residency program (AES), submitted in 2024, was rejected on the grounds that being an artist is not considered a high-demand profession and that he has no ties to France. The letter from the Paris police headquarters was accompanied by a deportation notice (OQTF).

Indeed, since the Retailleau circular, which tightened the conditions for regularization, foreigners must, among other things, prove they have a job in a sector experiencing a labor shortage to be eligible for a one-year residency permit. Any refusal is systematically accompanied by a deportation notice.

When Zaef submitted his application for an AES in 2024, the Valls circular governed the regularization of undocumented immigrants through employment or family reasons – criteria which were more flexible. But when his case was processed in September 2025, it was under the Retailleau circular.

"When I received my deportation order, I felt anger and incomprehension. It was like they'd pressed the off button. It [the AES, editor's note] was my last card. So everything stops, after 10 years of living in France. You have to start all over again somewhere else, but where is somewhere else?" he says. "It's like everything I've done here doesn't count: my friends and my partner don't count. Today, I'm no longer that African man who arrived 10 years ago."

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Made famous in his taxi in Gabon

That was his "last resort," as Zaef had already tried to obtain asylum in France in 2016. Born in Ivory Coast to a Burkinabé father and a Malian mother, he spent part of his childhood in Burkina Faso before returning to live with his family in Ivory Coast and then settling alone in Gabon until 2016.

It was in this Central African country that he cut his teeth as a comedian. In his taxi, he focused on telling jokes to customers who looked unhappy. "My goal was to make sad passengers laugh," he recalls. When customers got out of his car laughing, Zaef felt he had done his job.

One day, the young man was spotted by a customer unlike any other: Omar Defunzu, "the Gabonese Jamel Debbouze," as he introduces him. The latter trained him and then invited him to appear on his show "Éclats de rire" (Bursts of Laughter). Zaef performed his first shows in Gabon and worked on numerous projects with French television channels in Africa (Canal+, TV5).

But the 2016 electoral crisis in Gabon led to his flight to France. "I didn't feel safe for personal reasons," he said, without elaborating.

His asylum application in France as a Gabonese resident was rejected by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) and then by the National Court of Asylum (CNDA) on the grounds that he was not in danger in Gabon.

Zaef requested a review of his asylum application in 2021 as a Burkinabé citizen, but it was refused in 2024 because he did not provide sufficient evidence of danger in his country of origin.

"My whole life depends on the prefecture." These 10 years of administrative struggles have not, however, prevented the comedian from performing on stage, in comedy clubs, opening for well-known artists like Ahmed Sylla, having radio segments, and appearing on television. He was also nominated at the end of 2025 for the Augustes de l'humour awards, a ceremony that honors comedians.

"The art world is unique: with my profession, I don’t need any documentation to work," he explains. "People under deportation orders came to see my show, and they didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t have documentation. They told me, ‘Even you, who performs on stage, are undocumented!’"

Zaef knows this; his story is "that of many undocumented immigrants, present in all strata of French society." Even though he is better off than others because of his profession, the comedian has also been living for 10 years with a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. "Not a day goes by without the fact that I don’t have papers coming up again. I can never plan for the future; my whole life depends on the prefecture," he sighs. The stand-up comedian has even had to refuse invitations to perform in other countries, for fear of no longer being able to enter France.

This summer, he's been invited to Canada for the Just for Laughs festival, the world's largest comedy festival. But this time, he doesn't intend to let the opportunity slip away. "I'm scared, but I have to make a decision. In France, I became the best version of myself, and I did everything I could to live a normal life, but it's not working. We'll see what happens; I believe in fate," he says fatalistically. "No matter what happens, I will have tried everything."

In a video posted on May 13 on his Instagram account, followed by more than 12,000 people, Zaef publicly announced that he received a deportation notice to show that "this can happen to anyone and that we are not criminals because, in the collective mindset, a person under a deportation notice is dangerous." The post was shared by big names in the arts, such as Waly Dia and Panayotis Pascot.

"This outpouring of solidarity touched me deeply. I was very surprised by the enthusiasm my video generated," he admitted two weeks later. "Talking about it and receiving all this support liberated me, as if I'd finally gotten my status. You see, I have a family, ties to France," the comedian added, as if with a wink to the prefecture.

Thanks to the media attention his case received, he was received once again by the authorities in early June for a review of his file. But how many others like him "don't have this opportunity"? "My daily life allows me to talk about it, but I want to speak out for all those who can't. Undocumented immigrants also contribute to French society."

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