Léonarda Dibrani and her family settled in the town of Levier, in the Doubs département (county) of eastern France in 2008 after fleeing Kosovo where they claim they are discriminated against because of their Roma Gypsy origins.
Under French law, the family would have been entitled to settle permanently in France after they had been living in the country for five years, a period they would have reached in just two months time. However, after their official application for asylum was rejected earlier this year, Léonarda’s father, who had been placed in a detention centre in Strasbourg, was expelled back to Kosovo on October 8th.
Léonarda, her five brothers and sisters aged between 5 and 17 years, and her mother were expelled the following day.
The details of the manner in which Léonarda was arrested, during a school party outing, were first revealed by the association ‘Education without borders network’ (Réseaux education sans frontiers) in a blog post published on Mediapart on Tuesday, and which immediately prompted a storm of protest.
The teenager was travelling on a coach with some 40 fellow pupils from a school she had attended for the past four years, accompanied by teaching staff, for a visit of a Peugeot car assembly plant when she was called on her mobile phone by the mayor of Levier, Albert Jeannin, who asked to speak with one of the teachers. In the subsequent conversation, he asked the teacher to stop the coach in order for police to arrest Léonarda and take her to join the rest of her family who were already in custody and due to be expelled from France that same day. After the teacher refused his request, Jeannin passed the phone to an immigration officer who then ordered her to comply.
The coach parked at a nearby school where Léonarda was met and detained by two officers in a patrol car in front of the party. She and her family were expelled back to Kosovo by plane early that same afternoon.
The arrest of the 15 year-old during a school activity, and in front of her classmates, has led to an outcry among the government’s own socialist ranks, and a stern protest by education minister Vincent Peillon who has demanded for an immediate end to such practice. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced an internal investigation into the events was launched and would report its results within 48 hours.

Meanwhile, contacted by Mediapart, Socialist MP Sandrine Mazetier, vice-president of the National Assembly and head of her party’s immigration affairs department, denounced Léonarda’s arrest as contrary to law, and was strongly critical of interior minister Manuel Valls. “The manner in which young Léonarda was ‘taken into charge’ by police, as the interior minister put it in his statement released on Tuesday evening, corresponds neither with the spirit nor the letter of what is set out regarding foreigners who are in an illegal situation,” Mazetier said.
The MP called for sanctions to be taken against the police prefect for the Doubs department, Stephane Fratacci, who she accused of acting with the intention of causing a “political provocation”. Fratacci was once a senior official with the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity under France’s previous conservative government.
“The government’s policy is clarity of the law, the respect of law, firmness but also humanity,” she said. “In this case in question, we have crossed all the limits. A [government] circular issued in 2012 makes clear the criteria for regularising [the situation of illegal immigrants]. Included in these criteria is the length of time spent present in the country, professional activity, the schooling of children, and so on. The prefect took a decision that was symbolically shocking, within the sphere of school. It is just what we denounced for years. In practice it [the circular] is in contradiction with the powers of prefects. Under the circular, Léonarda’s family would have been entitled to regularisation in just eight weeks.”
Asked about Manuel Valls’s statement on Tuesday that he applies expulsion orders “with firmness while scrupulously ensuring the respect of foreigners’ rights”, Mazetier commented: “We have a different appreciation then of the adverb “scrupulously”. In scrupulously there is the word ‘scruple’”.
Asked whether she believed Léonarda’s arrest was uniquely the responsibility of the prefect, and whether Valls had made a political mistake in not disowning the prefect’s actions, Mazetier replied: “It is first and foremost the decision of a prefect fully exercising his powers, who knows the situation perfectly well because he was general secretary of the Ministry of National Identity under [former president] Nicolas Sarkozy. He knows all that by heart. He obviously knows the circular sent out last November. He knows the discretionary power prefects have in such situations. So I’m not even sure if it was zeal. I wonder if it wasn’t down to another reason.” Asked what that could be, she said: “For reason of political provocation.”
“The prefect must be summoned and punished,” Mazetier said. I am very satisfied that an administrative investigation was announced this morning. The responsibilities in this scandalous arrest must be established.”
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English version by Graham Tearse