Widely scorned, illegal workers do Europe's heavy lifting

PARIS In the early morning hours, the construction bosses come to the smoky cafes near the Gare du Nord train station. One day they might need a half-dozen bricklayers. The next day it might be painters. The workers are gathered together and driven to the construction site, then dropped off at the end of the day.

They are all foreigners, part of a broad invisible economy that exists somewhere between the illegal and the ignored. They and possibly as many as 3 million more across Europe work in restaurants, on farms and at construction sites, doing jobs that pay little but often require the kind of heavy lifting that many Europeans now shun.

As many European countries put up new barriers against what is increasingly perceived as an invasion of immigrants, little thought is being given to how Europe's envied standard of living has come to depend on the manpower the illegal workers provide - or how it might fall if immigration were curtailed.

"There is a lot of hypocrisy," said Jean-Philippe Chauzy, a spokesman for the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration. "The jobs are there, and they basically act as a magnet. It's like a horse and carriage - you can't have one without the other."

He noted that there was talk of keeping illegal workers out, but not of cracking down on people who employ illegal workers. To do that, he said, would not be "a vote-winner."

The sans papiers,as those without legal immigration papers are referred to in France, come from as close as Eastern Europe and Turkey, and as far away as Central Asia and the former French colonies of West Africa. They enjoy none of the workers' rights and protections or social benefits of the state.

They are paid less than the legal wage, and are often paid late, with no legal recourse. And although many have lived and worked in France for years, they have no right to vote or even complain openly about their condition.

"The immigrants do all the heavy work in France, but they don't get what they deserve," said Yashar, a man in his twenties who said he came two years ago from Turkey's Black Sea coast and works in restaurants and at other odd jobs. "It's a great injustice."

"They leave us here, but they don't give us papers - they exploit us," said Kahraman, a 30-year-old Turk sporting a black leather jacket in a crowded cafe thick with cigarette smoke and the scent of strong Turkish tea. "The bosses who make us work don't pay taxes."

"Everyone thinks this is the home of human rights," he said. "There are no rights. There's no right to work, no right to food. I can't send money to my family. Where are the human rights?"

Kamel Abichou, 37, a Tunisian, has fake papers. He works each day in catering for a total of 131 hours a month. He is sure his employers know he is here illegally, and use that knowledge to benefit. He is always paid late, he said, and two or three hours of work are regularly "forgotten." He is always asked to stay later than others. Abichou belongs to no union, and he said he never complained for fear of losing his job.

There are no real figures on how many illegal immigrants live and work in France without papers, but the numbers are probably in the hundreds of thousands, and in the millions throughout Europe.

Immigration experts often quote an educated guess of about 3 million migrants living and working in the 15 countries of the European Union. The only solid figure is how many people took advantage of an amnesty that five European countries offered in the 1990s; then, a total of 1.5 million illegal migrants came forward in France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.

Umit Metin, the director of the Assembly of Turkish Citizens in central Paris, said he believed that there were now 300,000 illegal immigrants in France. Allowing them to stay and work at underpaid jobs, he said, "is another form of exploitation. It's another form of colonization."

"They are helping the economy of France," he said. Besides the Turks, who often work as artisans and bricklayers on construction sites, there has been a more recent flow of illegal Chinese workers, who are employed in the clothing and textile industry.

Germany has enacted a migration law this year that provides for the legal entry of such workers as software engineers who have highly sought-after skills. But most of the people coming to Europe have lesser skills or none at all.

Their presence has prompted a popular backlash in many countries, helping to create strong gains at the ballot box for far-right, anti-immigrant political parties that blame the newcomers for rising crime and unemployment.

In the Netherlands, a new government has taken power after a huge popular outpouring for the anti-immigration political maverick Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated the week before May elections. The new government that was formed after the vote is promising curbs on immigration. In Denmark as well, the government has instituted new curbs on migrants.

In France, President Jacques Chirac used his Bastille Day speech on July 14 to promise to speed up the processing of asylum applications. That would be a significant change, because many foreigners who get into France from outside the EU turn themselves in to authorities and claim they were politically persecuted in their homelands. While they wait for their applications to be processed, they are allowed to live freely, but they have to support themselves. And so, lacking papers, they take jobs in the underground economy.

Some migrant advocates say that legalizing the status of the sans papiers is the way to go. "A migrant who is illegal cannot integrate," said Chauzy, the spokesman for the immigration advocacy group in Geneva. "He or she is forced into the underground economy." And that, he said, is "probably the best way to fuel xenophobia and resentment against foreigners."

more fromKeith B. Richburg
The Washington Post