CIMADE

The Cimade ( Committee intermouvements near the evacuees - the oecumenical mention service of mutual aid was added thereafter) is a Association with nonlucrative goal (law 1901) particularly present on the ground of the assistance at the foreigners in irregular situation.

Since 1984, by a convention passed with the Ministry for the Social Affairs, Cimade is present in the Retention centres Administrative distributed on the French territory. Foreigners in authority of expulsion " retenus" in these centers are the subject either of a measurement of distance of the territory, or of a " handing-over in a state of the Européenne" Union;. It is only the ONG authorized (by the law) to enter the retention centres administrative (administrative Liste of the retention centres to France) in order to supervise the conditions of retention, and to bring legal aid necessary to the people in process of expulsion.

According to its statutes, the purpose of the CIMADE “is to express a solidarity activates with those which suffer, which is oppressed and exploited and to ensure their defense, whatever their nationality, their origin, or their political or religious position. In particular, it has the aim of scrupulously fighting the racisme.veiller with the respect of the rights and the dignity of the people, whatever their situation.

Cimade gathers people of horizons national, denominational, philosophical and political various, committed in this service. ”

History

Origin of association

The CIMADE was creates, in September 1939, to facilitate the Alsatian installation of the populations and Lorraine which had been evacuated towards the South of France because of the entry in war against Germany and of the proximity of the Maginot Line on the border. The plain of Alsace and Lorraine, border zone with Germany, became a dangerous perimeter with the eyes of the French government. Quickly, it appears necessary to evacuate most of the civil populations of Alsace and Lorraine towards the south-west of France (High-Vienna, the Dordogne, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, Gers). Start then for more than 200.000 people one long period of exile towards areas where wait difficult conditions of reception.

Sensitive to the distress of the evacuees, a théologienne of origin Alsatian, Suzanne DE DIETRICH, well-known of the protesting medium, undertake a voyage in these areas of south-west. This will to begin finds its direction in the awakening that to the uprooting of Alsatian and Lorraine is added the confrontation of two religions, Catholicism and Protestantism. Whereas Alsace and Lorraine are large cradles of Protestantism, the departments of reception are mainly catholic. The Alsatian ones and the Lorraine ones are then perceived like foreigners and very often essuient reactions of rejection on behalf of the populations of reception.

After the Second world war

Since its creation, the services of Cimade did not cease evolving/moving according to the geopolitical context. According to the periods, the services of Cimade are the reflection of the flow of foreign populations arriving to France (taken refuge and migrant). In a booklet of Cimade published in June 1960, the services of Cimade are divided into several fields, classified by order of importance of the number of mobilized team-members:

- The service of the refugees was divided into seven principal services: services of assistance to immigration and the emigration, the cloakroom, lodging houses, the craft industry, language classes and the film club, distributions of vivres. Cimade had in Sucy-in-Brie since 1948 and an old people's home reception center for Russian refugees in Cannes, Saint Raphaël and Perreux.

- In the North-African sector, the activities for the benefit of the Algerians during the war of independence, were distributed, between France (North-African service and camps of house arrest, stations of Marseilles, Paris 14th-15th, then Lyon the shortly after independence) and Algeria (Algiers, Médéa, Sidi Nahmane, Belkitane and centers of regrouping).

- Coudekerque: social action and educational in a working district of Dunkirk, the continuation of the work undertaken after the war.

- Dakar: in 1956, Cimade set up a permanent team in Médina of Dakar, where it opened a dispensary.

- The international house of the students of Sevres accommodated an about sixty students of origin and levels various.

- The service of the prisons and released was born during the last war and was associated with the penitentiary reforms.

- The service of the emergency disaster victims answered the mission of work of emergency help that Cimade was fixed as of its beginnings.

Today

It is implied today mainly in voluntary legal aid with Without-papers , at the sides of other organizations such as GISTI.

The mission of the service (" DER") of Défense from Abroad Selected of Cimade aims at making effective the basic rights guaranteed by the ordinance of November 2nd, 1945. The team-members of Cimade visit the foreigners selected, provide them legal information and the social assistance essential, and ensure the bonds between these foreigners and the outside of the center, particularly with the families. Cimade also returns account to the Ministry for the Social Affairs of the achievement of this mission, and formulates proposals if need be tending to the improvement of the conditions of retention.

To promote its action near the public and to enable him to call upon the gift in confidence, association adheres to the Comité of the Charter.

In 2006, Cimade launches a campaign entitled " Enough humiliation, the migrants are our world! " who denounces the injustices and humiliations undergone by the migrants around 8 topics. This countryside ends in 2007 in the development of 75 proposals for an immigration policy right and considered " if one wants to prevent that Europe does not transform itself into a Greek Republic with its citizens, its slaves and with far its barbares". Laurent Giovannoni, general secretary, present the project of Cimade to the candidates with the presidency like an alternative to the current payment of immigration.

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