Cedric Herrou: I'm facing prison for helping migrants

I live in the Roya valley, in the south-eastern corner of France, a community of ordinary, humane Europeans.

The lower part of the valley is Italian, the upper part is French.

Those of us who live here move between the two countries without paying any attention to the border.

I'm neither French nor Italian, I'm from the Roya.

The current 'state of emergency' imposed by the French government since the November 2015 Paris attacks, has had an unprecedented impact on our valley.

A whole race, a people, a religion, has been stigmatised by a populist politics that uses fear of the other to manipulate the masses.

Mothers and children, families, trying to join husbands, uncles, sisters, cousins, friends, people who've been driven from their home countries by dictatorship or war, who've been imprisoned, tortured or enslaved in Libya, are reaching the French border.

Mostly of African origin, they think they've arrived in a "civilised" country, where human rights are respected, where lost children are cared for by the state. But no! When they get to the border, exhausted, often with injuries sustained on their journey, children are hunted like dogs by the police and the army.

French law says that unaccompanied children must be cared for by the state, but in these cases the law is being flouted - black people apparently don't have rights.

A whole race, a people, a religion, has been stigmatised by a populist politics that uses fear of the other to manipulate the masses

The French police take the children back to Italy, either by train, without a ticket, hidden from the Italian police, or across the border in un-marked vehicles, supervised by plainclothes police.

More than 300 witnesses have lodged complaints about this practice with the Alps-Maritimes Police Prefecture, the Local Authority and the Regional President.

	Herrou's smallholding near the French-Italian border [Facebook]

Mr Pretre, the Public Prosecutor for Nice, has done nothing. He refuses to acknowledge this injustice, thereby making himself complicit, through his inaction, in the endangerment of children.

Our association, Roya Citoyenne, feels helpless in the face of these men who hold all the power. For our senior civil servants, representing our highest public authorities, migrants are just statistics, quotas, a "flow".

Those of us living in the Roya valley see them every day. We look into their faces. They're here among us, and they can't hide themselves without our help.

So we look after them, and we hide them.

My smallholding has become a campsite, with caravans, tents, a log cabin.

Once they get their smiles back, the people become our friends. When their sprains have been treated and their wounds stitched up, they're ready to continue their journeys, towards France, Germany, Belgium…

We take them over tracks and across mountains, on foot or in cars.

At the railway station, we don't talk much. Tears flow if there are still tears left. My own have become hard and dry, like sand. They cause me pain.

There's no need for yellow stars, for labels to single these people out. They're black, the colour of their skin makes them a target. The target.

Our politicians are encouraging a climate of fear, spreading the idea that Europe is a terrorist target

They're everyone's punch bag; they're accused of being potential terrorists, of stealing French people's jobs, of coming to sponge off the social system.

The border has been secured as an anti-terrorism measure, but to get through you just have to pay 250 euros to a gang of smugglers.

Our politicians are encouraging a climate of fear, spreading the idea that Europe is a terrorist target, when in fact the majority of attacks and deaths happen in countries where the dominant religion is Islam. It's Muslims who are the main victims of this abomination.

Terrorism is fed by stigmatisation and hate, and that's what I'm fighting against. Hate and the stigmatisation of people of another race, religion, skin colour.

I'll carry on helping people, papers or not, until they put me in prison. Because I care about life and I respect it

I've helped people to cross the border, I've housed and cared for them, because I don't want them to lose their dignity, their physical and moral integrity.

Last October, we opened up a place that had been abandoned for 20 years, to provide shelter for people. There were more than 100 of us, white and black, with and without papers, working together to create a space where people in transit could find shelter, for a night or for a week, finally catch their breath, get some rest. A place where finally someone would consider their needs.

The Chief Constable didn't see it that way though. We were arrested, and I was charged.

I risk eight months in prison for helping people who had become my friends.

I want to explain my background. I was born in Nice, in a suburb where my schoolmates were black, grey, yellow, white. I grew up in racial indifference and that's what I'm being judged for today, for not making distinctions, for not asking to see some kid's papers before I help him.

I'll carry on helping people, papers or not, until they put me in prison. Because I care about life and I respect it.

I won't bow to threats or pressure. I refuse to be complicit through silence or inaction.


Cedric Herrou is a farmer and activist on trial for supporting migrants traveling through the region where he lives near the France-Italy border.