jan 1, 1975 - Scandal of illegal detention.
Description:
NGOs and journalists worked together. "A handful of individuals were out to challenge the idea that ‘France did not have gulags’. Indeed, if there were no gulags as such, there was nonetheless a ‘secret’, illegal detention centre in the heart of France’s biggest port town, Marseille. This detention centre had a name: ARENC. Naylor traced the origins of Arenc back to the early 1960s, and gave a vivid picture of how this centre was born within the grey area between legality and illegality. He described the conditions of the immigrants – mostly Algerians until 1968 – who stayed there for one or two nights before they were swiftly (and quietly) expelled from France back to North Africa. After the Arenc scandal broke out in 1975, the centre was not closed – rather, it was slowly transformed into a legalised detention centre for immigrants until its closure in 2006. But if the story of Arenc is one of immigration, detention and (il)legality, it is also one of protest. Indeed, the particular forms of protest undertaken in 1975 showed a shift from street violence or hunger strikes to the mobilisation of the legal system." (http://frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/blog/?p=234)
Added to timeline:
Administrative Detention
Research Internship
Date:
