Parisian radio show lets immigrants set their frequency – and tell stories

PARIS — The building that houses Foyer Bisson is on a side street, off an avenue crowded with Asian and couscous restaurants and a handful of trendy bars. The exterior is nondescript and indistinguishable from its neighbors. Inside, though, it’s another world.

Instead of the mailboxes found in most residential entryways, visitors will find a small bazaar, with men selling single candies and cigarettes, peanuts in the shell, eggs and whole chickens. Just past the makeshift market, a short staircase leads down to a prayer room and, in the next room, a small recording studio. This is the headquarters of Radio des Foyers, an ambitious radio project that offers an inside perspective into the lives of foyer residents and of other immigrants who live at the margins of French society.

During a live broadcast this past winter, three producers debuted audio documentaries and took questions from several dozen people in the audience. Across a small cement courtyard, people gathered in a common kitchen to cook. In the rest of the foyer — a type of communal residence to house migrant workers — people came and went, going about their daily lives. There was a familial feeling in the room as friends and strangers shared food, listened to radio and explored tough questions about multiculturalism in contemporary France.

Foyers, originally constructed at the end of the 1950s across France to house migrant Algerian workers, occupy an important but often almost invisible space in the country’s cities and suburbs. Typically located on the periphery of urban centers or in surrounding working-class suburbs, they feature simple rooms for sleeping and, most often, shared bathrooms, kitchens and living areas. The residences are closer to hotels than rental apartments, with no long-term contract and rent paid on a monthly basis.

Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, foyers also drew residents from other former French colonies in Africa. Though the construction of residences built expressly for foreign workers ended in the 1980s, the communal living spaces are still a lifeline for many immigrants arriving in France. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the number of immigrant workers currently living in foyers, now also called “résidences sociales,” is roughly 90,000.

Though his room wasn’t comfortable — foyers are infamous for their crowded, often unhygienic living conditions — it did offer a sense of security. “I liked the ambience. There was a common room, a café, a shared eating space, and we would get together and play cards until midnight,” he says. “You don’t want to leave at night if you don’t have papers, because there are police and you’re scared. But being together, talking and playing cards gives you something to do.” Before he gained legal status to live in France, Magassa used his older brother’s ID card and hoped he wouldn’t get caught.

“I know the same struggles,” says Dao, who also volunteers for Radio des Foyers. Dao is also from Mali and came to France in 2009 armed with an associate’s degree in social anthropology. Once in France, he earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology at a school in Le Havre before moving to Paris to find work. Living without documents, he says, is “a source of stress, a daily battle, but that’s a source of strength as well.”

The duo describes the residences as a crucial resource. “Foyers are a place to get information about where to go, what to do, how to do it. It’s really important when you first arrive in France. Even when we have our own place, we keep one foot in the foyer,” Dao says.

“It’s a way to stay attached to your country,” Magassa adds. “You can talk about what’s really happening back home.”

Magassa and Dao’s 18-minute radio documentary explores what it’s like to celebrate Ramadan far from home. “We wanted to tell the story of this joyous celebration, but the people we talked to said it wasn’t actually joyous for them here. It was too hard to celebrate due to work; it was too hard to pray at work. So we had to rethink our title, and we changed it to ‘Ramadan, une fête en exil,’ ” says Magassa.

“Most people think you can pray at home but not at work,” says Dao, who like his partner had intended to fast for Ramadan when he came to France, but gave up because he found it too difficult to juggle with his work schedule. “Assimilation means erasing your culture and religion. As soon as we go to work or go into a public space, we don’t show where we come from.” French law adheres to the principle of laïcité, or separation of church and state, which keeps religious beliefs or identities out of the public sphere. Interviewees for the story described the loneliness that tinges their celebration of the festival in their adopted country. One man said he hopes to celebrate Eid — the breaking of the fast after Ramadan — back home in Algeria one day, but for now, he has to stay in France to work.

Though the immigrant women Diallo interviewed often found work cooking, cleaning or working in hair salons, they commonly spoke of the precariousness that comes with poverty.

Chantal Sagna, a volunteer working on her first piece for Radio des Foyers, joined the organization six months ago on the recommendation of her friend Wagui Coulibaly, a resident of Foyer Bisson. It seemed the perfect opportunity to help people like herself, she says. Having grown up in both Senegal and France, Sagna describes her childhood as harsh, adding that she spent several years on the street before finding work with a dance company. “I’m here to give a voice to people like me,” she says. “Today I don’t think of myself anymore as a victim. I’m an accomplished woman, I know where I’m going, I know what I want and what I don’t want.”

In her radio piece, Sagna hopes to portray what life is really like for immigrants in France, particularly youth and women. “There are a lot of people who live in the shadows, and I want to give them the chance to be heard,” she says. “The solidarity between people [in foyers] has created a unique sphere in France that should be considered something to be valued rather something to be destroyed.”

The future of foyers in France has been a matter of debate since 1997, when the Ministry of the Interior launched an initiative to transform what had been called foyers to “résidences sociales.” Though the idea was presented as an effort to improve living conditions and promote diversity in shared housing, residents have not always been happy with the renovations, which often include a decreased number of available beds (to reduce overcrowding) and the disappearance of common living rooms, prayer rooms and other gathering spaces. Today, foyers are overseen by the state and three primary management services that place people in résidences sociales.

In the years since efforts began to transform foyers into so-called social residences with better living conditions, the French press has featured stories reflecting the discontent of residents, who say that the renovations decrease their quality of life by taking away communal spaces such as kitchens and prayer rooms. 

Though Magassa knows all too well the struggles of foyer life, he says the purpose of Radio des Foyers isn’t only to criticize but also to celebrate life both inside and outside of France’s foyers. “We aren’t just here to say negative things but also positive things about this country — what we have created here that has given meaning to life, why we like this country.”