Man Stuck in Paris Airport Over 10 Years
France
| December 30, 2003
| Tim
While doing research for the next story I discovered this interesting true story over at snopes.com:
He could be any passenger waiting for a flight, sitting patiently on a red plastic bench in Charles de Gaulle Airport's Terminal One, luggage piled neatly by his side.
He sips a cup of hot chocolate and scans the crowd, occasionally cocking his head to listen to the airport announcements. He peruses a book, Hillary Rodham Clinton's "It Takes a Village."
But Merhan Karimi Nasseri is going nowhere. He has been waiting for a flight out of France, he says, for 10 years.
Nasseri was expelled from Iran a decade ago for his political views. Through a series of fateful missteps, he landed here without any documents. Since then, Europe's increasingly stiff stance toward refugees and his fragile mental state have kept him at the airport here in legal limbo.
His is a story of broken hopes and bureaucracy, of a trip across Europe in search of a homeland that became a journey into mental chaos and despair. And it is a story of a man who has searched for his family, only to find an adopted one here, at Charles de Gaulle.
"He's like a part of the airport. Everyone knows him," says Muhamed Mourrid, the manager of the Bye Bye Bar, pointing to the spot where Nasseri, 47, has lived for a decade. "That's his table, his chair, his place." Adds Marise Petry, a Lufthansa clerk, "He's one of us. We even get letters for him."
Among the annals of horrific refugee tales, Nasseri's story is remarkable for its pathos and complexity. It begins in Iran in 1977, when Nasseri, fresh from studying in England, was expelled for protesting against the shah. His expulsion left him without a passport.
Nasseri came to Europe. He bounced from capital to capital, applying for refugee status and being refused, again and again, for nearly four years. In 1981, his request for political asylum from Iran was finally granted by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Belgium.
That decision gave him refugee credentials, which in turn allowed him to seek citizenship in a European country. The son of an Iranian and a Briton, Nasseri decided in 1986 on England with the hope of finding relatives there.
He got as far as Paris, where in 1988 his briefcase containing his refugee documents was stolen in a train station.
Nasseri boarded a plane for London anyway. But when officials at Heathrow Airport found he had no passport, they sent him back to Charles de Gaulle. At first, the French police arrested him for illegal entry. But as Nasseri had no documents, there was no country of origin to which he could be deported.
So he took up residence in Terminal One. From its circular confines, he and his attorney, the Paris-based human rights lawyer Christian Bourget, battled to define his status and send him to London. In 1992, a French court finally ruled that Nasseri had entered the airport legally as a refugee and could not be expelled from it.
But the court could not force the French government to allow him out of the airport onto French soil. In fact, Bourget said, French authorities refused to give Nasseri either a refugee or transit visa. "It was pure bureaucracy," said the lawyer. French immigration authorities have no comment on the case.
Very interesting and sad: read the whole thing. According to this page, Stephen Spielberg is making a movie about him, and this blog entry summarizes his current status:
Finally, in September of 1999 – eleven years after first being stuck in the French airport – Nasseri was given French residency (finally!) and the ability to travel internationally. However, the cards list “Sir Alfred’s” citizenship as Iranian, which he has a problem with, so Nasseri refuses to sign them and therefore still cannot leave the airport. Obviously, Nasseri now has some mental problems likely caused by his injust incarceration. It's now almost 2004. At this point, he’s become somewhat of a celebrity in Charles De Gaulle and is sought out by travelers (still in Terminal One) who seek to see or talk to him. He continues to read.
Thank God for the French! It's nice to see that the nation that thinks it can steer world politics by divine right can so justly and so deftly handle situations within its own borders. I wonder if the American Left will question the French on this flagrant violation of individual civil rights as vehemently as they supported France and Germany's opposition to the War in Iraq.
france couldnt find its own ass with both hands....
Just remeber how America rescued France ass during the 2nd World War. France can't even help ONE man.
Just remember how France helped OUR asses in the Revolutionary War. Oh how quickly some forget...
Seems the British are the real a-holes here. Why don't they just let him in?... obviously he doesn't want to live in France(since they made a movie about him five years before offering to put him up). He has or had family in England.
France is like the U.S.: sometimes right, sometimes wrong. For example, the war: France was right. The Bushies were wrong.
Patty,
Let me get this straight:
In 1991, the UN agrees that any member state who was involved in the first war, who acts in cooperation with Kuwait, can use any means necessary to enforce the weapons-inspection regime, including resumption of warfare. So use of force against Iraq, for these reasons, unilaterally, is already automatically allowed, even if no further UN meetings occurred.
Through the 90s, weapons inspectors (including Scott Ritter, who later claims otherwise) continually claim that Iraq is lying and deceiving them.
After 9/11, France says, in the UN, that Iraq must face severe consequences if they fail to cooperate with inspections.
In person, Chiraq promises Colin Powell that France will support use of force, should Iraq continue to thwart the inspectors, and that's the right thing to do.
Hans Blix reports that Iraq has thwarted inspections at many different occasions.
Suddenly, France goes back on their word and claims the "moral" stance is the opposite!
In the aftermath, we discover:
(a) That France had made a secret $110 BILLION dollar deal with Saddam to support his government in return for oil rights.
(b) That French banks were deeply involved in the fraud behind the oil-for-food scandal, which they served to continue to gain from by keeping Saddam in power.
(c) That many within the French government had received oil-for-food bribe money from Saddam to influence them to oppose any use of force by the UN.
And, given all this, you think France was "right" in it's actions and stances?
Forgive me if I have trouble seeing the logic of saying France was acting morally in this situation!
You might say: "Well, the US did things wrong too!"
Well, perhaps that's arguable! But you didn't say both parties were in the wrong (for some unspecified reason) you said France was "right". Again, I'm not sure why propping up a cruel dictatorship in return for cash is right.
Even if the US did what it did for cash or oil (which I don't believe for a second), I'd still rather support someone deposes a guy like Saddam for profit than one who continues to help him drop his citizens and their families through plastic shredders, slowly, for the same alleged kind profit.
But I guess I'm "wrong" about that, too.
Please tell me I'm missing some important part of this picture which makes your views make some kind of sense.
The help from the French during the Revolutionary War is much appreciated by the Americans (and to varying degrees, the rest of the free world).
However, please note that the French protected their own interests during that war in going against the British by helping the American revolutionaries.
That was almost 228 years ago. The French saved during 1st and 2nd World Wars which were less than a century ago . .. How soon they forget!
(Someone must have been sleeping during history class, or maybe she forgot this fact . ..)
"Mr. Nasseri was born in Soleiman, a part of Iran then under British jurisdiction, to an Iranian father and a "British" mother."
Maybe this fact couldn't get verified by UK Immigration Services. They could've asked the British intelligence services, but . .. (fill in the blank).
The French are too worried about their own interests (i.e., to the tune of $110 Billion, or maybe it's their arms sales to Iraq that were so lucrative; etc.) to truly care. Baisez les Français!
All this from a European Union that thinks it's all that just because it said it is 'united'. "Manchester United" is more vereinigt.
The industrialized member countries of the EU won't even truly help their Eastern country members' citizens . .. pas dans ma arrière-cour?
Tous parlent, et aucune vraie substance.
Bumsen Sie die Franzosen! Zwei Weltkriege und -zählen!
NotHeather,
Actually, such aid was more recent, still.
Reconstructing France and Germany (and Japan) in the decade after the war cost the American taxpayer quite a bit at the time.
And within our own generation there were tanks and nuclear warheads amassed directly behind the Iron curtain, pointed at the few parts of Western Europe not controlled from the Kremlin. During the cold war, the American taxpayer provided the national defense for France and other such countries. During my lifetime Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. Did they remain far from Paris because the French had superior cuisine or literature?
Because the US provided their national defense, many European nations were able to put the money collected (at high tax rates) into social programs instead. Those programs, which they still receive, were thus indirectly subsidized, paid for, by the US taxpayer.
This month, we remember that the Soviet Empire was destroyed by Ronald Reagan, working in concert with other great world leaders like Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, and the Pontiff. But the fuel for Reagan's war was a massive military buildup, which he could only get a Democratic congress to approve if he also allowed their massive social spending.
Once again, the US taxpayer is still paying off this debt, which has allowed Western Europeans to now trade with their Eastern neighbors, improve their economies, and include these newly-liberated nations within the EU's sphere of control.
Is this again due to the inherantly superior morality of European stances on things? Mais non! Follow the money!
Further, still: European (and Canadian!) healthcare is indirectly subsidized by Americans. They are able to give out effective treatments so cheap partially because the US exists, and provides a profit-based market in which their medical treatments can be developed. If that goose were cooked, the golden eggs would be gone as well.
As an American taxpayer, I don't expect everyone on earth to then bow down and say how great we are. We're not -- we're just simple human beings trying, in our sometimes-flawed way, to do the best we can to get along and improve things.
And just as the French acted in their best interests by supporting the US against the British long before my ancestors arrived here, so also we have done some of these things because we realized that was was good for others was probably in our interests as well.
But, on the other hand, it's hard to take seriously the preening, ridiculuous moral posturing and conspiracy theories I hear from so many of my "enlightened" European friends.
If a man finds you on the street, cleans you up and heals you, shares his clothes with you, and serves you a good warm dinner from his kitchen, you don't have to lick his shoes in gratitude.
But it's also poor etiquette to piss in the soup bowl when you're done, and leave the mess for him to clean, without a mere "thanks", but rather a snide complaint about his cooking skills.
It's doubtful that the American revolution would have succeeded without the help of the liberty-minded French in the late 1700s.
Remember that ANY organization or bureaucracy is more than capable of stupid behavior, including those in the USA.
R. Deegan: I agree, on both counts.
This is shocking.
Also, British immigration control is shocking. Anyone should be allowed in. When you flee from your country you don't look for your passport straight away, you just get the hell out of there.
Also, the British government is shocking for leaving the immigration situation as it is
Well I for one will be voting liberal as soon as I can.
USA USA USA!
Where does this article talk about iraq... bloody yanks...
just for information after WWII France thanks the US for saving them and ask them to let the French rebuilt their country by themself. France is almost the only country in the world without American army based within its border. So US tax payer never paid for their reconstruction.
And about Nasseri, there is biography that you can read and you will that he has never wanted to be accepted by the French, he wants to be British. So the French cannot force him out of the airport.
it looks like all people and nations are pretty much assholes... Proof is in the story and the comments below...
Just for more information. Yes it's true that the French thanked us for saving them, but that's where it ended. The United States as well as Britian poured millions of dollars in money and goods into France after the war. France encouraged the USA to build noumerous army and air force bases throughout France on our dime, employing thousands of French to support them.
What did we get for our trouble? France kicked our armed forces out when the last base was opened. Never offering to repay us for them.
After dominating the European Union (trade between european countries only) they specifically targeted Britian because of their strong ties to the United States. With Britian's economy on the verge of collapse and after asking to become a member, who was it that casted the only vote against them. FRANCE!!!
Why, because France, with the lions share of the rebuilding money sent to Europe, was able to controll most of what was traded between the members and their vote was considered a veto.
I could go on but have to run, it's Christmas and we're having a service for my grandfather and two uncles buried in France during WW2.
My mommmy is better mommy. Stop the childish French and American squabling. It seems like you guys are renacting your infancy. The issue here is the poor guy sitting in a Airport for 15 years. One thing for sure this kind of situation would never happen in the US Airport. Not at least for that long. By the way, I am boycotting French products.
I am half French, and i am appauled at this, ok it is my country and i love it, i have gone through charles de gaule many a time and have seen him once. But people who hear about it say it is terrable, he is a free man since 1999 but he is being selfish.
The French appear to enjoy just being difficult. That said, this idiot could have just signed the damn papers and freed himself from his own prison. At some point, he needs to be held responsible for his own fate. Pick your battles. Is denying your country of birth for the purpose of residency really worth living in an airport...especially Charles De Gaulle??
We all like to think that "we" could handle such affairs better than "them"...it is part of patriotism and one small step from ethnocentrism. While it is sad that a man lived in an airport for so many years due to the theft of his papers, there are rules that are in place in EVERY country concerning entry, and they are abided by in most cases. Immigration rules are all too often too lax in the USA...we allow nearly anyone in from nearly any country, and we all know how that turned out.
Grow up & get over it.
France was right, America was wrong.
America is no longer number one now.
Apologies ?
I *also* think it's hilarious that some are so obsessed about Iraq that when I post an article about a famous guy stuck in a French airport, some immediately steer the topic to the Iraq war. But since we're on the topic...
France was right, America was wrong.
About what, David?
If France was "right" in the past then why did her voters recently overwhelmingly reject the Chirac administration? It doesn't sound like the French particularly cared for his positions and policies.
BTW, I have nothing in particular against the French as a whole (some are quite wonderful people) and I certainly don't think French-bashing is helpful. But I also stand by my comments above -- that the Chirac administration was deeply corrupt and greedy, and that that had everything to do with their stance on Iraq.
Apologies ?
What on earth for? War critics (in both the US and Europe) clamed the main motivation was oil. Yet the US left the oil under Iraqi control. In contrast, Chirac and Russia, who opposed the war, were being paid off with promises of multi-trillion-dollar cheap-oil contracts from Saddam. Further, a number of European nations were caught helping Saddam steal massive amounts of oil money which was supposed to be buying food and medicine for the Iraqi people. Who was acting based on greed, then?
Moreover, the war seems to have saved well in excess of 200,000 Iraqi lives.
Again, what's to apologize for? The US took nothing from Iraq (whereas a number of European nations and Russia were all too happy to embezzle the Iraqi people), has given generously to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure that was destroyed by the war or by Saddam's neglect, and, even despite the terrorists's attacks, still saved hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives.
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Thank God for the French! It's nice to see that the nation that thinks it can steer world politics by divine right can so justly and so deftly handle situations within its own borders. I wonder if the American Left will question the French on this flagrant violation of individual civil rights as vehemently as they supported France and Germany's opposition to the War in Iraq.
Posted by: Josh on December 31, 2003 03:01 PM