Plea to Air France Over Deportees

Thursday, 12 July 2007 - BBC News

French trade unions have urged Air France to stop using its planes to deport illegal immigrants.

The appeal was made to the airline's shareholders at their annual general meeting in Paris.

The unions say some of their members have been traumatised by witnessing the handling of failed asylum seekers forcibly sent home on Air France jets.

The immigration minister said 6,000 people were deported in January-May, 2,200 of them under police escort.

Brice Hortefeux said only 4.6% of those cases had posed problems.

The president of the French League of Human Rights, Jean Pierre Dubois, told the BBC's Newshour programme that Air France carried more deportees than any of its European counterparts.

"Air France is becoming the number one. I don't think any kind of aircraft company in Europe has accepted such a huge amount of expulsions on their commercial flights. But I think Air France is really now becoming a kind of leader on that issue," he said.

The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby in Paris says several flights have had to be cancelled in recent months because of problems concerning deportees.

Sometimes deportees are handcuffed by police and forcibly restrained.

The union's call to end the deportation flights comes as President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to crack down hard on illegal immigration. He wants to expel more than 25,000 failed asylum seekers from France this

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Workers Urge Air France Chiefs to Stop Expelling Immigrants

July 12, 2007 - The Associated Press

PARIS: Airline unions urged Air France on Thursday to stop expelling illegal immigrants on its flights, saying the practice upsets flight attendants and passengers and may hurt business at France's flagship carrier.

Workers for five unions were presenting their demands at the Air France-KLM annual shareholders' meeting in Paris. For years unions have urged the airline to halt the expulsions, but the demand attracted extra attention this year because of President Nicolas Sarkozy's determination to step up expulsions as part of his tougher policies on immigration.

Every year, thousands of illegal immigrants are put aboard Air France flights and sent to their homelands, sometimes handcuffed and escorted by police. On occasions, they resist and must be forcibly restrained.

Air France unions CGT, CFDT, SUD, ALTER and SPAF voted Tuesday to ask the company to refuse to transport expelled immigrants.

In response, the company said in a statement Wednesday that it had no plans to reconsider expulsions "executed by the Interior Ministry on the basis of administrative or judicial decisions."

Still, the company noted that crew can refuse to allow a passenger aboard who is "believed to pose a threat to the safety of the flight."

In the first five months of 2007, 6,000 illegal immigrants were expelled by air, 2,200 of them under police escort, according to the newly created Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-development.

Gilles Nicoli, general secretary of CFDT-Air France, said airplane staff are suffering "more and more trauma from the violence that people sent across the border are subjected to."

"This has a negative image for the company," Nicoli said on France-Info radio.

Sarkozy has said he wants to expel 25,000 illegal immigrants this year, up from 24,000 in 2006. Sarkozy toughened immigration rules as interior minister before he became president this spring year.

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Air France n’arrêtera pas les expulsions
Malgré l’opposition unanime des syndicats, le transporteur réaffirme sa fermeté.

Par LAURE EQUY; jeudi 12 juillet 2007 - Libération

Air France n’entend pas revenir sur les reconduites d’immigrés en situation irrégulière à bord de ses appareils. Et ce malgré la motion, adressée le 5 juillet aux actionnaires par les représentants du personnel, réclamant «l’arrêt de l’utilisation des avions du groupe Air France-KLM pour les expulsions d’étrangers». La compagnie a tenu hier à afficher sa fermeté à la veille de l’assemblée générale annuelle de ses actionnaires, qui doivent se prononcer sur ce point. Air France a estimé, selon son service de presse, qu’il ne lui appartient pas de «remettre en cause» des mesures «prises dans le cadre d’un Etat de droit». La mise au point laisse les syndicats sceptiques. «La direction se retranche derrière les lois alors que c’est à l’Etat d’assumer la responsabilité de ses textes», juge Pascal Zadikian, élu CGT, rappelant le statut privé d’Air France.

Dans cette motion adoptée à l’unanimité, les 12 élus du comité central d’entreprise (CCE) invoquent le préjudice que ces expulsions (plusieurs centaines sur leurs vols depuis un an) portent à l’image de l’entreprise. Didier Dague (FO), refuse ainsi que l’équipage soit «considéré comme complice de telles pratiques». Mais au-delà de ce critère, ce sont des scènes «traumatisantes et difficilement supportables» pour le personnel comme pour les passagers, que veulent faire cesser les élus du CCE, poursuit Pascal Zadikian. Une position que Gérard Brisemeur (CGC), ne veut pas «politique mais humaniste ». Un individu «ligoté et bâillonné devant vous, ce n’est pas la prestation que doit offrir Air France», explique-t-il, soulignant la multiplication des cas de voyageurs «prenant fait et cause» pour un expulsé. A l’instar de l’annulation en mai d’un vol Paris-Bamako, après l’intervention des passagers contre une reconduite à la frontière. En 2006, 4,6 % des 6 000 expulsions par voie aérienne ont présenté des «difficultés», a annoncé hier le ministre de l’Immigration Brice Hortefeux.