CAPÍTULO IV: MARCO PROPOSITIVO
4.17 MONITOREO Y CONTROL
National media Judicial system Ministers; Politicians National state actors
Church Community
NCADC RESF
5.3 Mobilising structures at meso- and macro-level in
France and England
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I have highlighted in the previous two sections the high degree of similarities in the structure and dynamics of mobilisation at the local level in France and England. However, differences become clearly apparent when comparing mobilising structures at the meso- and macro-level, that is, formal or informal organisations to which local campaigning groups could turn to.
The RESF as a mobilising structure in France: The key role of mesomobilisation actors and online networking
The Réseau Education Sans Frontières was established on 26 June 2004, following several grassroots mobilisations in support of young people over 18 attending high school and threatened with removal. RESF‘s constitution as a national network relied heavily on the involvement of key activists long involved in trade unions and political parties:
Il y a cette „légende rose‟ de RESF qui dit que ce sont des citoyens qui ont été subitement confrontés à la situation dramatique de familles „sans papiers‟. Mais, même s‟il y a du vrai là-dedans, il faut savoir que c‟est quand même une affaire de militants qui se connaissaient au départ.105(Interview 18 France)
These long-time political activists drew upon their contacts developed during their previous militancy to promote campaigning in support of undocumented families. In particular, they relied upon their trade union and political networks nationwide to further the appeal of their cause. These highly politicised
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There is this pink legend at RESF that suggests that RESF is about citizens being suddenly confronted with the dramatic situation of undocumented families. But, even if there is some truth to it, it has to be said that it‘s something led by activists who knew each other (Interview 18 France).
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campaigners were ultimately successful in attracting support from national teachers‘ unions, pro-migrant and human-rights organisations and parents‘ associations, alongside pre-existing local committees supporting families and young people. The main teachers‘ trade unions unanimously condemned deportations of school children and officially endorsed RESF‘s activities. So did the left-leaning Federation of school parents‘ councils, the biggest school parents‘ association in France counting 300,000 members (Fédération des Conseils de Parents d'Elèves, 2010). Specialised pro-migrant organisations, such as the GISTI and Cimade, provided expert advice and acted as brokers between the RESF network and institutional actors or immigration lawyers.
Campaigners followed three main goals in setting up RESF in 2004: (a) Defining child deportations as a social problem to be raised nationally (b) Creating and reinforcing local committees supporting children and
families
(c) Recruiting non-activists at the local level.
Defining child deportations as a social problem nationally: a bottom-up approach
When asked about the rationale for such a network, actors involved in setting up RESF in 2004 referred to the strategic dimension of such a network to transform a commonly local problem – schools, neighbourhoods and communities fighting against the removal of a family – into a national social problem. Individual campaigners had been struck by the massive local reactions to young people threatened with deportation and wanted to use this local potential to further the cause nationally. Following meetings between grassroots campaigners, it was agreed that a national network would help
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towards ‗nationalising‘ this social problem, as explained by one of those involved in setting up the network: ‗Cette indignation elle est locale, et donc l‟idée qu‟est venue, c‟est de dire “ben on fait du foin sur tout ça et puis on essaie de faire apparaître la chose au niveau national”‟106
(Interview 14 France). It was their view that debates around children and young people would in the long term open up to debates on the wider group of undocumented migrants (see Chapter 8). Through the set up of a network, campaigners hoped to facilitate long term activities and thus prevent short- lived committees or collectives – which, until then, had been a common pattern of ‗sans-papiers‘ mobilisations in France (Blin, 2000).
It can therefore be argued that the set up of RESF as a national network is the result of a strategy developed by resourceful activists who relied upon extensive knowledge and experience of activism. Experienced activists were highly instrumental in structuring the national bottom-up movement based on local committees campaigning on behalf of local families and young people threatened with removal.
Reinforcing existing local committees and supporting the creation of new committees
The second main aim pursued by activists involved in setting up RESF was for RESF to act as a mobilising structure (McAdam et al., 1996b) to provide support to and advise newly-created local committees fighting against the removal of a family. Campaigners wanted to avoid the multiplication of
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This outrage is local, so the idea that came to light was: we raise the alarm on these issues, and we try to raise the issue at the national level (Interview 14 France).
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isolated local struggles, focusing instead on linking up individual campaigning groups to achieve social change:
Au début ... je me disais „putain, on va monter RESF, tous les comités locaux vont se mettre ensemble‟. Effectivement, j‟avais raison, c‟est ce qu‟on a fait et j‟ai été bien participant dans ce coup là. Et c‟est vrai que maintenant quand on voit ce qu‟on est capable de faire, mobiliser et tout ce qu‟on a fait changer.107
(Interview 25 France)
In France, the RESF network, at local, regional and national level, was the backbone of most local mobilisations in France, providing both information on campaigning activities and legal support. French participants all mentioned the ‗network‘ as the main source of information and the first port of call when confronted with a family threatened with deportation. This considerably helped mitigating potential obstacles to mobilisation for individual campaigning groups. Such mentoring of newly created committees and on-going support was facilitated by two main factors: the presence of ‗mesomobilisation‘ actors (Gerhards and Rucht, 1992) and the virtual network provided by electronic mailing lists and websites.
As mentioned earlier, some of the activists involved in founding RESF were themselves involved in campaigning against the deportation of children and young people at a local level. They thus had the experience and knowledge acquired through campaigning. Furthermore the bulk of local RESF committees appeared in 2006, following the exceptional regularisation
107 At the beginning, I was thinking to myself ‗God, we are going to set up RESF, and all the local
committees are going to come together‘. And as it is, I was right, that‘s what we did. And I have been well involved into all this. And now, when we see what we are able to do, mobilise, and everything we have been able to influence. (Interview 25 France)
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undertaken by Nicolas Sarkozy, the then Interior Minister (see Chapter 6). Individuals and groups interested in setting up a local committee in 2006 were thus able to rely on the knowledge of local RESF committees set up since 2004. In some areas the multiplication of local committees resulted in the establishment of regional ‗steering groups‘ in charge of coordinating RESF activities at a meso-level. Some of these experienced campaigners and local committees thus acted as mesomobilisation actors (Gerhards and Rucht, 1992), motivating and mobilising new local committees. New committees could turn to these actors for advice and support and, thanks to these connections, were directly connected to pre-existing committees and included within the wider RESF network. These mesomobilisation actors came to be equated with the RESF network, as indicated by the following quote by a campaigner running a campaign at the local level, stressing the key role played by such a mesomobilisation actor:
C‟était avec l‟aide du réseau, hein, moi j‟étais vraiment en lien avec le réseau là parce que j‟étais un peu perdue de toute manière. J‟étais en lien avec M., que j‟avais jamais vue. Donc à ce moment là, on s‟appelait tous les jours, voire deux fois par jour pour savoir où on en était, ce qu‟on faisait. Faire un communiqué de presse, les liens avec la presse, ça c‟était des choses, même si j‟en avais conscience, c‟était des choses [que je ne savais pas faire]. Elle était là pour me dire „bon bah voilà, il faut faire ci, il faut faire ça‟ Donc après je faisais le lien avec l‟école en disant „il faut
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qu‟on aille voir Mr B., qui vient, quel jour? Il faut l‟appeler.‟108 (Interview 28 France)
Mesomobilisation actors, such as the one described in the previous quote, were often first involved in support of a family at the local level. But the knowledge they acquired and their understanding of the need to expand the movement led them to mobilise at a meso-level rather than micro-level, as explained by a primary school teacher previously involved in support of a family:
Après par rapport à d‟autres familles, je me suis pas impliqué de cette façon. Par rapport à d‟autres familles, j‟essayais de les aider à trouver autour d‟elles un comité comme le nôtre. Notre truc, ça a été d‟aller dans les écoles et de dire „Bon ben voilà comment on a monté notre comité, voilà ce qui faut faire.‟109
(Interview 25 France).
Those experienced in campaigning in support of a family thus very often ended up helping set up other committees. Such support, in their opinion, provided the opportunity to further expand the movement:
Le fait d‟aider à la construction d‟un collectif sur une école, c‟est un peu un investissement, mais c‟est aussi un retour sur investissement parce qu‟on est plus nombreux à être sensibilisés
108 It was thanks to the ‗network‘s‘ help. I was really linking up with the network, because I was a bit
lost. I was in touch with M., who I had never seen. ... So, at the time, we were calling each other every day, at times twice a day to know what we were at, what we should be doing. Preparing a press release, linking up with the media, these were really things – even though I was aware of – these were things [I had no idea how to tackle]. She was there to tell me ‗you have to do this, you have to do that‘. So afterwards, I was going back to my school telling them ‗we have to go and see Mr. B. Who is coming? Which day? We have to call‘. (Interview 28 France)
109 Now, with regard to other families, I haven‘t got involved in the same way. With other families, I was
trying to help them find around them a committee similar to the one we had set up [for the first family]. ... Our thing was to go to schools and say ‗That‘s the way we set up our committee, here is what you have to do‘ (Interview 25 France).
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à la question, parce que quand on fait une manif, euh, pour une famille, ben on a plus de chances, au lieu d‟être cinq d‟être 10, et pour signer une pétition au lieu d‟avoir 300 personnes, on en a 600 qui la signent.110 (Interview 15 France)
Such support was of great reassurance for ‗affective‘ campaigners with no previous experience of activism.
A large number of these mesomobilisation actors were able to acquire such a central role thanks to the indirect help of trade unions. Among the mesomobilisation actors interviewed, six benefited from part-time trade union mandates to specifically deal with matters arising in the frame of RESF. Trade union mandates are usually meant to enable representatives to cater for the needs of union members. However, RESF mesomobilisation actors were allowed to use their free time to deal with issues arising in the frame of RESF. Interviewees stressed the fact that contrary to common rivalries between individual unions, unions had been able to unite on the issue of undocumented children. In particular, some mesomobilisation actors whose union did not provide them with a discharge were able to benefit from a discharge provided by another union. As acknowledged by a mesomobilisation actor below, such inter-union solidarity is rare:
En 2006-2007, j‟avais une décharge syndicale du SNU donc mon syndicat et cette année, j‟ai une décharge syndicale d‟un autre syndicat parce qu‟au SNU, ils ne voulaient pas m‟en donner une. Donc je suis toujours syndiquée au SNU mais j‟ai une décharge
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Helping towards setting up a committee in a school is a bit of an investment, but it also provides clear return on investment because we are many more to be sensitised to the issue. When we go on a protest, for a family for instance, rather than being five, we‘ll be ten, and when it comes to signing a petition, rather than having 300 signatures, there are 600 people signing it. (Interview 15 France)
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de SUD. Je crois qu‟on est les seuls quand même à faire bosser tous les syndicats ensemble sans que ça pose problème. C‟est vrai qu‟on ne ramène jamais la couverture à nos syndicats, parce qu‟on n‟est pas là pour ça, on s‟en fiche! (Interview 20 France)
As a result, though playing a rather secondary role in the actual decision- making process within RESF, trade unions largely contributed to RESF‘s activities by providing such resources. In that sense they truly acted as ‗mobilising structures‘.
Alongside mesomobilisation actors, a second source of support was provided by the numerous mailing lists and the RESF website, which proved key to the ‗empowerment‘ of individual committees and local campaigners. Campaigners highlighted the crucial role played by the internet in providing them with the tools to communicate with any RESF supporter around France. When asked how they acquired knowledge or helped a family out of a difficult situation, campaigners emphasised the key role of mailing lists and websites: ‗C‟est vrai que quand on sait plus trop quoi faire ou qu‟on n‟a pas la réponse à quelque chose, il suffit de mettre sur la liste internet. C‟est vraiment un réseau, c‟est vraiment ça le réseau‟111
(Interview 6 France). The awareness that another campaigner might have the answer to a specific question somewhere around France constituted a source of comfort for individual actors: Campaigners knew that they could resort to the internet if none of their fellow campaigners were able to help them. The online network worked therefore alongside the local network and was called upon whenever local
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It‘s true that when we don‘t know anymore what to do or that we don‘t have an answer to something, we just put something on the mailing list. It‘s truly a network, truly a network (Interview 6 France).
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actors were not available or unable to help. RESF‘s success has thus been predicated upon its ability to link up, mainly through the internet but also through local, regional and national networks, campaigners that would not have known each other otherwise.
A loose structure to facilitate involvement
Most campaigners within RESF, as in many social movement organisations (Nepstad and Clifford, 2006), opposed any kind of hierarchical structure and instead favoured consensus-based decision-making processes. For long- time political campaigners, this starkly contrasted with their experience of trade unions or political parties: ‗C‟est un aspect important dans notre
combat. Ce n‟est pas une organisation pyramidale. C‟est une organisation concentrique... et nous sommes des cercles et les cercles sont imbriqués les uns dans les autres‟112
(Interview 12 France). For first-timers, the network structure provided an alternative to committing to an ideological or political organisation. The network offered a greater level of freedom and independence than involvement within a formal organisation. Those wary of being drawn into ‗politics‘, and therefore not involved in a union or a party, particularly appreciated such freedom:
En étant dans le réseau, j‟adhère pas à une idéologie. … Et moi ça me convient bien, parce que je trouve que c‟est intéressant de
112 It‘s an important aspect of our fight. RESF is not a pyramidal organisation. It‘s a concentric
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pouvoir avoir une certaine liberté par rapport à tout ça et quand t‟es pas d‟accord tu dis „merde‟.113
(Interview 28 France)
Local committees were autonomous and free to choose their own strategy to support families and young people: ‗On peut faire des choses localement sans avoir à demander l‟autorisation à 50000 personnes et si on a envie de faire des trucs, on les fait‟114
(Interview 15 France). Research participants identified the absence of formal accountability as a key factor for involvement and sustained participation:
Ce n‟est pas une association, ce n‟est pas une organisation, c‟est un réseau et que ça change TOUT! T‟es pas chapeauté. Et c‟est ce qui m‟attire aussi là dedans, voilà, c‟est que y a pas de comptes à rendre, tu vois.115 (Interview 3 France)
It is especially interesting to note that such comments were expressed by actors in different localities and with very different opinions and degrees of involvement. This highlights the strength of this instrumental frame and its centrality to RESF campaigners‘ sense of collective identity. However, as in many social movement organisations, such a loose structure was often challenged by some RESF campaigners, in particular those carrying the burden of being ‗perceived‘ as leaders by outsiders. There were numerous debates around the need to structure the network. Such hierarchisation was, however, consistently opposed by a majority of RESF campaigners, as the
113 The fact that I‘m in the network doesn‘t mean that I‘m subscribing to any ideology. ... And that suits
me well. I find it good to be able to have some freedom from all that, and when you disagree, you just say ‗f.ck‘ (Interview 28 France).
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We can do things locally without having to ask 50,000 people for authorisation. And if we want to do something, we do it (Interview 15 France).
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It‘s not an association, it‘s not an organisation, it‘s a network and that changes EVERYTHING! You‘re not overseen by anybody. And that‘s what attracts me, you are not accountable to anybody, you see (Interview 3 France).
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absence of hierarchy was perceived as constitutive of RESF‘s collective