FactualThey fled the violence of a decade of civil war seven, five or three years ago. These refugees chose France to try to live far from the ruins of their country, but still worried about the situation in Syria.
Ali is exhausted when he appears before the agent of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra), in Paris, on October 30, 2015. At 34, he has crossed seven countries and one sea since leaving Syria, a month ago. With his wife, they fled nearly five years of a civil war that swept away everything: the “Sweetness of Syrian living together”, human rights, housing, all social activity and, above all, hundreds of thousands of lives.
So when he remembers the question asked by the French agent: “Why did you wait five years before leaving? “, he loses his temper, moved by the same feeling of revolt that drove him to take to the streets of Hama, his hometown, in the spring of 2011. “I only left when there was nothing more to do for Syria”, he comes to life.
Since the first rallies against the power of Bashar Al-Assad, nearly twelve million Syrians, like Ali and his family, have been displaced by the war, according to Amnesty International. Among them, more than ten thousand people obtained the status of refugees in France. A welcoming land which saved them, but which can never really replace their country.
When he arrived in Paris, it took some time for Ali to get used to in the calm of a life without war. With his wife and their daughter, they have occupied for five years a studio of twenty square meters at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. A space barely larger than the room without electricity he occupied when he was a theater student in Damascus – today Ali works in a supermarket. In the Parisian studio, a sofa bed is stuck against a wall, in front of an imposing television and under a water leak that beads on the ceiling. The crib is wedged between two pieces of furniture and the apartment could crack as it is filled with objects, including children’s toys. “Here too, we are stuck”, regrets the father.
They had never dreamed of living in Europe. It was this war that forced them to do so. So their goal is to work to send money to their loved ones who stay behind. “If we don’t do it, we don’t deserve the revolution”, Ali slice, gesturing as if giving a theatrical performance of his own life. His curly hair obscures his gaze when he fidgets, and his thick red beard conceals a pale face, marked by nights of worry.
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