One thing I couldn’t help but notice as we traveled from site to site was the number of African men selling the small, cliche souvenirs or trinkets at each one. Other people on the trip did as well, so making a mental note I promised myself that I’d look into it. Before looking it into it, my mind immediately made the connection between what I’d been told and knew about immigration and the perception of Africans in France and the colonial connection between France and North and West Africa; specifically Senegal where I suspected many of the vendors were from. What I found essentially confirmed my assumptions, many of the vendors are immigrants without proper documentation who come from Senegal, the Rep. of Congo, and Mali, all of which were colonized by France. Selling these trinkets without a license is illegal, but it’s difficult to obtain a job without documents and those with jobs are often exploited or underpaid, therefore selling has become one of the only ways that they’re able to make an income.

After the aforementioned countries were decolonized, the manufactured positive image of France remained and that along with many French business owners and wealthy people taking citizens from former colonies to France as cheap labor made many view it as the place to go in order to build a better life. This coupled with the instability of those developing countries, which many believe wouldn’t have occurred if they hadn’t been colonized, lead to an increase in economic migrants and asylum seekers coming to France.

This brought to mind an excerpt from the book, Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon that our class read, in which he expresses the idea that the wealth that characterizes the state of the imperialists is the colonized’s wealth. Even though it was the labor and resources of countries like Chad, Niger, Senegal, the Rep. of Congo, Mali, and many others that made France into the superpower that it is today, they’re the ones who are currently underdeveloped. With France making concerted efforts to reduce the number of immigrants coming from those countries and blocking the chances of making an income for the people already there, it’s like adding insult to injury. When I saw those men selling the trinkets and selfie sticks, I wasn’t bothered and I didn’t feel pressured to buy their products but I was curious — curious to know what led to them standing there in front of the Louvre, the Palace of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower and why?

Sources:

Louarn, Anne-Diandra. “The Risks of Working Illegally in France.” InfoMigrants, 22 Jan. 2018, https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/7067/the-risks-of-working-illegally-in-france.

Morshed, Adnan. “The Ironic Life of African Migrants in Paris | Inter Press Service.” Inter Press Service News Agnecy, 6 Nov. 2018, http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/11/ironic-life-african-migrants-paris/.