The bizarre case of Guinean apprentice facing deportation from France

Earlier this year, a young Guinean apprentice baker in Besançon, eastern France, who arrived in the country as an unaccompanied minor, received a deportation order immediately after he turned 18. His outraged employer went on hunger strike in protest, and the order was finally overturned. Now another young Guinean, Yaya Camara, a 19-year-old apprentice electrician also settled in Besançon, has similarly been handed an expulsion order, which he has appealed with the support of his employers and teachers. But a particularly cruel twist in the case is the bizarre and disproven accusations levelled against the teenager by prefecture officials. David Perrotin reports.

David Perrotin

16 April 2021 à 21h17

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Yaya Camara, now aged 19, arrived in France from his home country Guinea, in West Africa, a little more than two years ago, after a long and arduous path north to Europe, and which he is reluctant to speak about in detail. “I left through Mali, Algeria, Libya, Italy and then France, at the end of 2018,” he said. “It was very complicated, especially between Libya and Algeria. It was very violent, very hard.”