Born in France but searching for a future in Africa

Menka Gomis was born in France however has determined his future lies in Senegal, the place his mother and father had been born.

The 39-year-old is a part of an growing variety of French Africans who’re leaving France, blaming the rise in racism, discrimination and nationalism.

BBC Africa Eye has investigated this phenomenon – being known as a “silent exodus” – to seek out out why individuals like Mr Gomis are disillusioned with life in France.

The Parisian arrange a small journey company that provides packages, primarily to Africa, geared toward these eager to reconnect with their ancestral roots, and now has an workplace in Senegal.

“I used to be born in France. I grew up in France, and we all know sure realities. There’s been quite a lot of racism. I used to be six and I used to be known as the N-word at college. On daily basis,” Mr Gomis, who went to high school within the southern port metropolis of Marseille, tells the BBC World Service.

“I could also be French, however I additionally come from elsewhere.”

Mr Gomis’s mom moved to France when she was only a child and can’t perceive his motivation for leaving household and pals to go to Senegal.

“I am not simply leaving for this African dream,” he explains, including it’s a combination of accountability he feels in direction of his mother and father’ homeland and likewise alternative.

“Africa is just like the Americas on the time of… the gold rush. I feel it is the continent of the long run. It is the place there’s the whole lot left to construct, the whole lot left to develop.”

The hyperlinks between France and Senegal – a primarily Muslim nation and former French colony, which was as soon as a key hub within the transatlantic slave commerce – are lengthy and sophisticated.

A current BBC Africa Eye investigation met migrants in Senegal willing to risk their lives in dangerous sea crossings to reach Europe.

Lots of them find yourself in France the place, in response to the French Workplace for the Safety of Refugee and Stateless Individuals (OFPRA), a report quantity sought asylum final 12 months.

Round 142,500 individuals utilized in whole, and a couple of third of all requests for defense had been accepted.

It isn’t clear what number of are selecting to do the reverse journey to Africa as French regulation prohibits gathering knowledge on race, faith and ethnicity.

However analysis means that extremely certified French residents from Muslim backgrounds, typically the kids of immigrants, are quietly emigrating.

These we met informed us attitudes in direction of immigration had been hardening in France, with right-wing parties wielding more influence.

Since their appointment final month, Prime Minister Michel Barnier and Inside Minister Bruno Retailleau have pledged to crack down on immigration, each authorized and unlawful, by pushing for modifications to the regulation domestically and on the European degree.

Fanta Guirassy has lived in France all her life and runs her personal nursing observe in Villemomble – an outer-suburb of Paris – however she can be planning a transfer to Senegal, the birthplace of her mom.

“Sadly, for fairly just a few years now in France, we’ve been feeling much less and fewer secure. It’s a disgrace to say it, however that’s the truth,” the 34-year-old tells the BBC.

“Being a single mom and having a 15-year-old teenager means you all the time have this little knot in your abdomen. You’re all the time afraid.”

Her wake-up name got here when her son was just lately stopped and searched by the police as he was chatting to his pals on the road.

“As a mom it is fairly traumatic. You see what occurs on TV and also you see it occur to others.”

In June final 12 months, riots erupted throughout France following the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk – a French nationwide of Algerian descent who was shot by police.

The case continues to be being investigated, however the riots shook the nation and mirrored an undercurrent of anger that had been constructing for years over the way in which ethnic minorities are handled in France.

A current survey of black individuals in France recommended 91% of these questioned had been victims of racial discrimination.

Within the wake of the riots, the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) known as on France to handle “problems with racial discrimination inside its regulation enforcement companies”.

The French overseas ministry dismissed the criticism, saying: “Any accusation of systemic racism or discrimination by the police in France is completely groundless. France and its police combat resolutely in opposition to racism and all types of discrimination.”

Nonetheless, in response to French inside ministry statistics, racist crimes rose by a 3rd final 12 months, with greater than 15,000 recorded incidents based mostly on race, faith or ethnicity.

For schoolteacher Audrey Monzemba, who’s of Congolese descent, such societal modifications have “turn into very anxiety-provoking”.

Early one morning, we be part of her on her commute by means of a multicultural and working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris.

Along with her younger daughter, she makes her means by bus and prepare, however as she approaches the college the place she works, she discreetly removes her scarf beneath the hood of her coat.

In secular France, sporting a hijab has turn into vastly controversial and 20 years in the past they had been banned in all state colleges – it’s a part of the explanation Ms Monzemba needs to depart France seeking to transfer to Senegal the place she has connections.

“I’m not saying that France isn’t for me. I’m simply saying that what I need is to have the ability to thrive in an surroundings that respects my religion and my values. I need to go to work with out having to take away my veil,” the 35-year-old says.

A current survey of greater than 1,000 French Muslims who’ve left France to settle overseas suggests it’s a rising pattern.

It follows a peak in Islamophobia within the wake of the 2015 attacks when Islamist gunmen killed 130 individuals in varied areas throughout Paris.

Ethical panics round secularism and job discrimination “are on the coronary heart of this silent flight”, Olivier Esteves, one of many authors of the report France, You Love It However You Go away It, tells the BBC.

“In the end, this emigration from France constitutes an actual brain-drain, as it’s primarily extremely educated French Muslims who determine to depart,” he says.

Take Fatoumata Sylla, 34, whose mother and father are from Senegal, for instance.

“When my father left Africa to return right here, he was searching for a greater high quality of life for his household in Africa. He would all the time inform us: ‘Don’t overlook the place you come from.'”

The tourism software program developer, who’s shifting to Senegal subsequent moth, says by going to arrange a enterprise in West Africa, she is displaying she has not forgotten her heritage – although her brother Abdoul, who like her was born in Paris, is just not satisfied.

“I’m anxious about her. I hope she’ll do OK, however I do not really feel the necessity to reconnect with something,” he tells the BBC.

“My tradition and my household is right here. Africa is the continent of our ancestors. However it’s probably not ours as a result of we weren’t there.

“I do not suppose you are going to discover some ancestral tradition, or an imaginary Wakanda,” he says, referring to the technologically superior society featured within the Black Panther motion pictures and comedian books.

In Dakar, we met Salamata Konte, who based the journey company with Mr Gomis, to seek out out what awaits French Africans like her who’re selecting to settle in Senegal.

Ms Konte swapped a high-paying banking job in Paris for the Senegalese capital.

“After I arrived in Senegal three years in the past I used to be shocked to listen to them name me ‘Frenchie’,” the 35-year-old says.

“I mentioned to myself: ‘OK, sure, certainly, I used to be born in France, however I am Senegalese such as you.’ So at first, we’ve this sense the place we are saying to ourselves: ‘Rattling, I used to be rejected in France, and now I am coming right here and I am additionally rejected right here.'”

However her recommendation is: “You need to come right here with humility and that is what I did.”

As for her expertise as a businesswoman, she says it has been “actually tough”.

“I typically inform those who Senegalese males are misogynistic. They do not like to listen to that, however I feel it is true.

“They’ve a tough time accepting {that a} girl is usually a CEO of an organization, {that a} girl can generally give ‘orders’ to sure individuals, that I, as a lady, can inform a driver who was late: ‘No, it isn’t regular that you simply’re late.’

“I feel we’ve to show ourselves slightly extra.”

Nonetheless, Mr Gomis is worked up as he awaits his Senegalese citizenship.

The journey company goes properly and he says he’s already engaged on his subsequent enterprise – a courting app for Senegal.