Undocumented Workers' Internet Use (France)

In France, the mobilization of undocumented workers has a long history, with the most recent cycle of mobilization events dating back to 1996. This entry describes the ways in which workers and their supporters have used the Internet in their campaigns for Workers' rights. It also examines how the undocumented Workers' movement has created a digital tooltheir dedicated websiteto communicate the Workers' stories and to reach and use the mainstream press.

Immigrant workers have staged sit-ins to challenge the arrests, imprisonments, and deportations to which the workers have been subjected. In 1996, some of these protests took the form of sitins inside churches (first Saint Ambroise's and then Saint Bernard's in rue Pajol, Paris). The government's response was to eject them forcibly from these sanctuaries, in the face of at least 10 activist organizations seeking to defend their human rights.

In turn, the College of Mediators (CM), a volunteer body of distinguished human rights activists, academics, clergy, journalists, and French Resistance veterans, formed to try to defend the migrant workers. Among its initiatives was a website (http://bok.net/pajol) that quickly became a key element in the struggle waged by the undocumented workers and their supporters. Its listserv, Z_pajol, became an indispensable tool of the movement, as well as a showcase of legal expertise.

It equally served as a forum, for instance, to prepare for the Immigration Symposia (Assises de l'Immigration) organized by CM. And its webmaster, Marc Chemillier, was very clear that it had a vital role to play in regard to mainstream media and public information on the struggle.

The undocumented workers inside Saint Bernard's consistently showed great skill in using whatever means they could to amplify their struggle as widely as possible. The image of “cyber-illegals” using mobile phones and laptops was part of their media game plan, generating an image of refugees from global poverty adapting sophisticated high-tech tools to their needs. The site also gave them the opportunity to publish their commentaries, most of them taken up voluntarily or at our request on mainstream media sites. These were complemented by documentaries on the struggle, and books on the state's immigration policies, many written in the wake of the struggle.

The website was then a crucial means of allowing the undocumented workers to share fully in how their case was framed and articulated. It permitted them to come across as individuals with thoughts and ideas, not as the undifferentiated group portrayed by mainstream media. Even the undocumented Workers' movement leaders, such as Ababacar Diop or Madjiguène Cissé, were little known to the public at large. But with these tools, mainstream media could be bypassed 24/7.

At the same time, this did not shut out working with professional journalists. The strategy was not to oppose mainstream media but to mesh with [Page 526]them. The CM website was hosted on a server in San Francisco in the United States, and its URL was provided in a CM communiqué from August 7. One French national daily took it up on August 10, and a second on August 11. Support postings soon followed. As time went by, international newspapers ran articles on the undocumented Workers' struggle, in the United States, Japan, and Germany. This almost certainly fed back into French government circles via diplomatic reports from its embassies.

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