Undocumented workers in high-demand occupations

Mohammed, plumber and volunteer at the Paris Olympics

"France has always needed foreign labor. My father came to work on construction sites in France in the late 1960s, so why leave us out?" asks this Franco-Moroccan plumber and electrician.

The forty-year-old arrived in the Île-de-France region in 2010 with a Schengen visa that expired after a few months, plunging him into illegality. With his plumbing certificate, he quickly found work in the construction industry, but due to a lack of papers, he was not registered.

But pay slips are essential to claim regularization and escape precariousness. "Some months I wasn't paid because the company told me it had no more money," says Mohammed, who resents the "rogue bosses" who "take advantage" of his situation.

After six years of working illegally, he finally found an employer willing to register him, allowing him to submit an application for exceptional regularization through work in 2021. But he never received a response from the prefecture: "implied refusal" in administrative jargon.

"I'm making a lot of effort to integrate, I'm working hard," says a weary Mohammed, a volunteer at the Olympic Games.

Determined to emerge from the shadows, he began a new application. After several months of trying to schedule an appointment on the prefecture's website, he received a summons... a year later.

"My life is here now," continues Mohammed, who says he has no doubts about his usefulness to France, which he demonstrated during Covid, when he was among the professions authorized to work during the lockdown.

Joseph, in trouble in Marseille to be declared

At 29, this Cameroonian has been in France for five years and has as many years of experience in the construction industry (electricity, painting, etc.) and air conditioning, but only eight pay slips, compared to the required twelve.

"I started out working in an air conditioning company for almost a year and a half," explains Joseph, who was paid 40 euros a day at the time.

"Little by little," his boss sends him out on his own, so he dares to ask for a raise, but the latter tells him "+no, I can't because you don't have papers+" and refuses to declare him.

"I worked from 8 a.m. to 17 p.m., but I could also finish at 19 p.m. or 20 p.m. for the same price. He knows you can't do anything, it's frustrating," says the undocumented immigrant.

Thanks to the website "Le Bon Coin," he found a new employer who paid him 60 euros a day, thanks to his experience. For nearly two years, he worked as a plasterer and painter, but even then, he was refused registration.

In January 2024, he was finally hired by a construction site. His new employer, who paid him 80 euros per day, began the formalities to register him by offering him a part-time fixed-term contract paying 1.080 euros per month.

But five months later, his employer fell ill and didn't renew his fixed-term contract. Since June, he's been contacting companies, but all of them want him to work illegally.

Amine, hotel employee in Biarritz

"I arrived in 2018. I slept on the streets for three years, in a tent, in Biarritz. It was difficult," explains Amine (not his real name), a 34-year-old Malian whose work visa is about to expire.

He first experienced "odd jobs, like helping a lady unload her car and carry her things," then "diving in a restaurant": "I was well paid, I worked a lot of overtime, but the boss spoke to me very badly. I was undocumented, but I want to work with respect."

Since 2021, he has been working in a hotel: "I bring bathrobes, shower gels, I help out in the hotel restaurant...". He works a lot but says he is "well treated, declared."

"They recruited me one summer, even without a passport, because they really couldn't find anyone. Last month, after gathering all my pay and tax slips, I received my papers, valid for one year," reports the man, who will "soon have a little boy with (his) wife, a French woman."

"If you do your job, if you respect people and institutions, you should have the right to stay. In Biarritz, all the hotels need workers. They can't find any," he says. "When you work, you pay for health insurance, unemployment benefits, you pay for a lot of things," he recalls, adding that in recent years he was not eligible for State Medical Aid (AME, intended for undocumented immigrants) due to his high income.