Diving in the paralyzed life of foreigners awaiting renewal of their residence permit – Liberation

Photos decorate the walls of the long corridor that leads to the living room. Bits of life glued to each other: Bled holidays, Kermesses and births. Mounir the prolix offers water, coffee, tea or « Something else ». He speaks again and again while standing. The father (three teenagers) take advantage of our presence to put words on his case. A kind of deliverance. Mounir keeps everything for him in his district of Creil (Oise), on the construction sites where he turbine, or at the city center cafe. At nightfall, when the children are immersed in their dreams, he takes stock of the situation with his wife. A ritual which consists in refreshing the page of the prefecture site. « I made a request for the renewal of my residence card in November but I am still on hold, he said the frowning eyebrows. I am in an irregular situation, because of the prefecture delays, since January. ” He no longer finds sleep.

Mounir, 51, is a long guy with a deep voice. He arrived in the Oise at the beginning of the century after his marriage to Samira. The two have known each other since always, or almost. She spent all her summers in Kabylia, Algeria, in the middle of the mountains, in a small village that saw Mounir born. A bond from childhood. From hide and seek in the midst of olive trees to great love. It was obvious. Mounir did things in « rules ». He wrote a