Asylum Seekers Give New Life to French Village

FILE PHOTO: Migrants carry their belongings after the dismantling their makeshift camp near Calais Port, France February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Migrants carry their belongings after the dismantling their makeshift camp near Calais Port, France February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo
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Asylum Seekers Give New Life to French Village

FILE PHOTO: Migrants carry their belongings after the dismantling their makeshift camp near Calais Port, France February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Migrants carry their belongings after the dismantling their makeshift camp near Calais Port, France February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

Some of its inhabitants say it feels like Chambon-le-Chateau is located at the end of the world: buffeted by the ferocious winds high in the Massif Central, frigid in winter and a long drive from the nearest town with no public transport.

But the village in the central Lozere region, France's most thinly-populated, has proven an unlikely success story in providing a welcoming home to asylum seekers whose presence has lifted the community.

Threatened by a rural exodus, Chambon-le-Chateau has encouraged asylum seekers to settle there for the last decade and a half -- they now make up 20 percent of its 300-strong population.

It's a story that bucks the trend in much of France, where there is not enough accommodation to host asylum seekers and anti-immigrant sentiment can ride high, with the ultra-right National Rally (RN) a major political force.

On a recent misty morning, a stream of parents -- Syrian, Sudanese or Ivorian, some of the mums draped in shimmering African fabrics -- walked down to the village school, leading their youngsters by the hand, while French parents dropped theirs off by car.

The two groups had little contact, but once inside the playground their children eagerly mingled and played ahead of lessons.

In a region where many classes had to shut due to people moving to the cities, the school in Chambon-le-Chateau boasts four classes, including one tailored to non-native French speakers who number 16, out of a total of 46 pupils.

"For my son who is eight years old, it is truly a chance to meet children from other countries," said local resident Valerie, who asked for her full name not to be published.

Teacher Marie-Amelie Papon said that the children mixed well.

She has 19 pupils, including 11 foreigners from Ivory Coast, Guinea, Sudan and Syria in her primary school class.

"The organization is sometimes heavy but it is normally stimulating for me," she told Agence France Presse.

Village mayor Michel Nouvel, 62, said that the reception center managed by NGO France Terre d'Asile (France Territory for Asylum), which supports asylum seekers, was first opened "when the village was economically devastated by the closure of a dairy factory."

The area had already hosted a professional training center for 80 youths who had dropped out of society, he said.

"We had the knowhow about how to host people in difficulty and we wanted to continue," he added.

Such attitudes are not guaranteed in France where residents and local officials are sometimes strongly opposed to the opening of centers for asylum seekers.

France, along with Germany, receives the most applications from asylum seekers in the European Union, with 110,500 initial demands in 2018, according to Eurostat.

There is consequently a lack of accommodation places for them and many live in informal tent camps, notably in the region around Paris, which can lead to social tensions.

"Thanks to the presence of the reception center, which hosts some 50 people, the school survived, the post office was kept going and we kept jobs as well as a pharmacy and a doctor," the mayor said.

He added that the asylum seekers' presence brought in around 20,000 euros ($22,300) a year to the municipality through the rental of public accommodation to the NGO to house the migrant families.

Private owners also benefit by renting out lodgings too.



Pope Francis Calls Trump’s Plans of Mass Deportation of Immigrants a ‘Disgrace’ 

A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis leading the Angelus prayer, traditional Sunday's prayer, from the window of his office overlooking Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City, 19 January 2025. (Vatican Media Handout/EPA)
A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis leading the Angelus prayer, traditional Sunday's prayer, from the window of his office overlooking Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City, 19 January 2025. (Vatican Media Handout/EPA)
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Pope Francis Calls Trump’s Plans of Mass Deportation of Immigrants a ‘Disgrace’ 

A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis leading the Angelus prayer, traditional Sunday's prayer, from the window of his office overlooking Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City, 19 January 2025. (Vatican Media Handout/EPA)
A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis leading the Angelus prayer, traditional Sunday's prayer, from the window of his office overlooking Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City, 19 January 2025. (Vatican Media Handout/EPA)

Pope Francis said Donald Trump’s plans to impose mass deportations of immigrants would be a “disgrace,” as he weighed in on the incoming US president’s pledges nearly a decade after calling him “not Christian” for wanting to build a wall along the US-Mexican border.

History’s first Latin American pope was asked about the Trump administration pledges of deportations during an appearance Sunday night on a popular Italian talk show, Che Tempo Che Fa.

“If true, this will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill” for the problem, Francis said. “This won’t do! This is not the way to solve things. That’s not how things are resolved.”

Trump, who is being sworn in on Monday, made mass deportations a signature issue of his campaign and has promised a raft of first-day orders to remake immigration policy.

During his first campaign for the presidency, in 2016, Francis was asked about Trump’s plans to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. Speaking after he celebrated Mass along the border, Francis famously said anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants is “not Christian.”

Many US bishops have firmly opposed Trump’s deportation plan, with the incoming archbishop of Washington DC, Cardinal Robert McElroy, saying such policies were “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.” It was a reference to the Biblical call to “welcome the stranger.”

Another cardinal close to Francis, Chicago Cardinal Blasé Cupich, said the reports of mass deportations targeting the Chicago area “are not only profoundly disturbing but also wound us deeply.”

In a statement delivered from the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City on Sunday, Cupich said governments have the responsibility to protect borders and communities.

“But we also are committed to defending the rights of all people, and protecting their human dignity,” according to the text of his statement.

Francis, who grew up in Argentina in a family of Italian immigrants, has long prioritized the plight of migrants and called for governments to welcome, protect and integrate them, within their means. He has said the dignity and rights of migrants trump any national security concerns.