Contenu du sommaire : Les réfugiés

Two Centuries of Refugees: Circulation, Qualification, Internationalization
In the multi-secular history of forced migrations, the 19th and 20th centuries represented an era of mutation whose main features this paper attempts to describe. Together with the changes in the conditions of worldwide migratory circulation, major shifts occurred in the definition of political communities and conditions of nationality and citizenship, within a context of European domination of the world, followed by the dislocation of colonial empires. Each of the two world wars in the 20th century contributed, through the massive movements of populations they provoked, to the emergence of the figure of the “political” refugee, the stateless person, together with an international legal status for refugees. Our study intends to highlight the existing articulations between the large flows of refugees and exiles and the qualification and classification processes over those two centuries.

What is a Refugee? The Political Construction of a Legal Category
In the aftermath of World War 1, the breadth and complexity of the questions raised by the refugee phenomenon compelled the international community to tackle the problem in order to offer solutions. However, the instruments developed within the international diplomatic circles remain very closely dependent on state interests. Through its successive mutations, the definition of “the refugee” reflects the underlying political issues at stake in any legal categorization.

Arrival and Application for Asylum
The right to asylum and the right of foreigners follow two different logics : protection for the former, control for the latter. Yet, neither in fact or law is this distinction so clear-cut when one looks at the situation of the asylum application and applicants. Whether regarding the arrival in France, the application at the border, the determination of the State concerned, the presentation of the asylum application or the countries of origin, the rules that apply form a particularly complex landscape. The fact remains, however, that based on the Geneva Convention, asylum applications have experienced such an explosive growth that they objectively belong to the migratory flows.

Toward a Social History of Political Asylum in France
The article suggests understanding political asylum through the social history of the institutions and agents that have implemented it in France since the end of the Second World War. Until the end of the 1970s, the protection officers had a social, cultural and political profile very similar to that of the refugees with whom they dealt. Then, due to new recruitments and to a more global approach of the control of migratory flows, they lost their autonomy, becoming one segment among many of the administration in charge of foreigners. Thus, the history of the relationship between the State and foreigners can be explained by the relationship between the political priorities of the government and the social profile of the agents recruited to implement them.

The European Union and Refugees: a Policy Which Shows Little Solidarity
The intergovernmental cooperation aiming to limit the number of asylum seekers dates back to the 1980s, even though the heads of States and governments of the member states of the Union decided to create a common asylum policy only in 1999. The entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam granted the European institutions a more prominent role in the drafting of policies regarding immigration, asylum and external borders management. However, the legislative texts only aim at a minimum harmonization of the member states policies. In fact, instead of a European asylum policy, what has emerged is a policy of non-access to asylum through a number of measures such as making visas compulsory to enter Europe, imposing penalties against carriers, or codifying the notions of “safe” countries and “manifestly unfounded demands”. Rather than introducing a common policy, the Dublin agreements and the Eurodac data base have made it possible to send asylum seekers from country to country. Thus, European asylum policy shows little solidarity and benefits only the ministries of those countries which have elaborated an informal system as early as 1985 in order to stop welcoming asylum seekers.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR). The hcr is responsible for nearly 34 million persons: refugees, stateless persons and displaced persons. The Palestinian refugees fall outside of its mandate, for they have been entrusted to a special agency, the unwra. The hcr was the result of the initiative of Fridtjof Nansen, who created the famous passport that bears his name, and who was the first High Commissioner of the League of Nations. Created by Resolution 428 (v) on December, 14th 1950, the agency came into being on January, 1st 1951. Its mandate has been extended beyond Europe, to include the entire world, and from refugees to stateless and displaced persons. It exercises an original normative activity in its domain, but it faces administrative and financial difficulties that make it a target for a number of criticisms.

The Space and Time of the Humanitarian Government
A short history of humanitarian intervention in favor of refugees and displaced persons since the 1970s, together with a description of a refugee camp in Africa, lead to a questioning of the formation and the current state of the humanitarian government.

Refugees without Refuge
The victims of conflicts that provoke displacements of populations become persons dispossessed of their home. Applied to the millions of persons without residence, or whose sole public identity and social condition is that of “refugee”, the notion of “home” raises fundamental stakes that are seldom explicated.

Environmental Issues and New Categories of Migrants: from Semantics to Geopolitics
Problems linked to the environment and global warming have favored the emergence of new definitions to qualify the migration flows they provoke: “environmental refugees”, “eco-refugees”, “climate refugees” ... An intense reflection, which is not without confusion, is under way in order to extend the statute of refugee to these migrants. Several obstacles and arguments stand in the way of such an evolution. Among them, state sovereignty remains the main point of contention with environmental stakes which, from the local to the global, do not acknowledge borders.