brakes and a loud bang, the noise of two cars colliding, then a second bang and the sound of breaking of glass. There was a pile up, an inattentive driver tried to avoid the queue of cars too late.
The two Gardes turned in the direction of the crash at the same instant as Stone and Ennis. They saw the drivers and passengers stumbling out the cars, they were hurling insults at each other in good French style, one of the drivers was bleeding from his forehead.
The Garde made an impatient sign to Stone to pull over onto the verge then he turned in the direction of the accident.
Stone edged forward slowly looking into his rear view mirror and saw the Gardes disappear into a small crowd of drivers who had got out for a better look at the spectacle. He heard shouts and saw raised arms. The other Gardes hurried in the direction of the accident, waving the waiting cars on.
Stone accelerated very slowly gliding away from the scene.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said crouching over the wheel. “As soon as they have settled their little problem, those bastards will turn their attention to us. We’d better get off the autoroute at the next exit.”
Expulsion
One by one they got down from the buses that stopped in a large parking zone. They were lined up on the roadside by the wire fencing where they waited shivering in silence, their faces full of apathy and resignation, in the fog and drizzle. Certain of them carried holdalls, others plastic bags, but the most were empty-handed. They wore the same jeans, trainers, tee shirts or jackets, exactly as when they had been picked up in Paris or in some other town, on the streets, in the Metro, on a bus or at home. They had been transported without formality by train and then by bus to the Algharbi frontier.
‘Our objective is not repression and above all not racist, it is simply to put order into the house of the Nation. We are accused of all kinds of acts against human rights, even atrocities by certain who would better look at their own shameful record,” Boublil declared to the international press assembled at the conference in the Elysée Palace. “It’s true there have been a few regrettable incidents as our representatives of law and order have carried out their duty in the maintenance of civil peace, it was unfortunate, but given the degree of the problem that confronted the Nation it was unavoidable.’
The transfer of non-Europeans to Algharb was nothing less than expulsion, a spectacle of cruel regularity that took place deep in the night of almost every day of the week.
The NASE Guards stood at the ready wearing anti-riot helmets with shaded visors covering their faces, they had the look of threatening extraterrestrials, their stun-guns pointed at the sad group of men.
A uniformed official made a sign with his club to the group to move forward towards the gate in the fencing that had been half opened. They passed through ignoring their guards with an air of indifference. They were dehumanised, mere cattle to be sorted. The thick fog that hung in the cold morning air at Col Bayard, near to Gap, hid the buildings and the fate that awaited them on the other side of the frontier.
Without looking back the officials climbed into one of the buses that started and turned towards the office buildings for a warm breakfast, and the empty bus was cleaned for the next trip.
In no more than a quarter of an hour the Nation had rid itself of another hundred or so non-Gallos. Without cries, without words and without wasted effort. It was as though they were not human beings, but simply a herd of animals that had been brought home to their paddock as quickly as possible with the gate carefully closed behind them.
Boublil, the Minister of Ethnic Affairs, instigator of the denaturalisation laws, congratulated himself on the smoothness of the operations; seventy thousand non-Gallos had been ‘repatriated’ in less than two months, one of the most massive acts of ethnic purification carried out by the Nation since the Partition and in fact in the history of France since the Jews had been expelled following the Inquisition.
The system functioned perfectly, a well-oiled machine that had reached its cruising speed. The remaining illegal non-Gallos, those without Guest Worker Cards, tried to avoid being trapped in the nets of the NASE patrols. They took refuge hiding in the SPZ’s, only a few dared to enter the Gallo towns and cities and only after night fall, others hid in abandoned house and some even took refuge in the woods near the large towns.
In the manhunt that had continued over the previous two months, the authorities, the army, the national and municipal police and the NASE Guards had joyously thrown out all notions of human rights in their enthusiasm to fulfil the objectives defined by le Martel’s government.
Not only those who could not produce the necessary papers were arbitrarily arrested, but also those in possession of valid GWD’s, they were humiliated, separated from their families, their papers destroyed, they were beaten and certain even died from their injuries. Observers from international human rights organisations watched helplessly as those who resisted expulsion were beaten at the frontier at near Gap. They were ordered to leave by a senior NASE officer, his shirt splattered with the victim’s blood, who explained that they had defended a ‘repatriation candidate’ who had been attacked by criminal elements.
Jean-Paul Michel, the under-secretary to the Minister of Ethnic Affairs and Non-Gallo Questions, was a self made arriviste, an enthusiastic partisan of the ethnic purification policies of the Nation. He explained to the observers that ‘the police are not here to distribute chocolates’. With his Jean Gabin looks and his pretended air of sympathy, he had never given the least consideration to others to advance his own position, ruining careers on his quest for power. He had started out as a lowly employee in the National Employment Agency, where using his position he had aided corrupt officials to obtain valued jobs for their friends and families.
He progressed patiently climbing step-by-step, using his well practised methods, until his political friends rewarded him with a place in the Ministry, where he excelled, fulfilling his duties with the zealous enthusiasm of the Vichy police.
Michel was nevertheless a man without much imagination and unfeelingly accomplished his evil job, separating families, men from their wives and children from their parents.
Once arrived in Algharb the young men had little to do but hang around on street corners or in cafés, work was scarce and what there was, was paid ten times less than in France, however, the ever present RAS ensured that they accepted their fate passively.
One young man had told Ennis, “They grabbed me in Paris, in the street, shoved me into a police van and dumped me at the Repatriation Centre. I showed them my ID card, told them I was French, they punched me and tore up my card, ‘a forgery’ they said. They didn’t even leave me the time to collect my things and call my family. At the Centre I met a fellow who told me he would leave with his family…he found himself on the same bus as me, without even being able to tell his wife and children where they were taking him.”
Then another young man told him how the NASE had burst into his flat in the middle of the afternoon.
“I was having a doze, I was dressed just in my underpants. I just had time to dress, they wanted to take me like that!” he said, then adding he had been denounced by his landlord. Local TV stations regularly appealed to the public to inform the police of any persons suspected of being Infiltrators, ‘Protect our Nation from Infiltrators and subversives!’ was the slogan. Many were betrayed by their bosses, only too happy to get rid of them when work fell off.
After having crossed the frontier into Algharb, the new deportees boarded another bus and were dropped of at an arrivals centre where they were questioned and sorted by a points system, separating the desirable from non-desirable based on the lists provided by the French authorities. Those who had useful professions were sent to destinations where they could possibly find employment, the non-desirable were mostly common law delinquents, but also those who were politically suspect who were transferred to holding centres for further investigation.
The most difficult cases were the
sick and infirm or elderly without means. The French authorities provided financial aid for such cases, but this aid disappeared into the coffers of the government of Algharb rarely assisting those in need.
In parallel were those with money, they had been invited to quit the Nation to a destination of their own choosing, that is if they found a country that would accept them, either their country of ethnic origin or another that offered asylum, though there were very few. Those persons were free to transfer there belongings or money, selling the properties they owned in the Nation, but not before signing a declaration, abandoning all rights of residence in the country, the Federation or in a French territory.
All non Gallo-Europeans were required to possess a GWR card, graded according to a degree of priorities based on their profession. All GWR holders were obliged to report once a month to their local Agency for Ethnic Affairs.
The Federal Authority in Brussels had a policy of non-interference in what the Permanent Council decided were the internal affairs of a member states.
Brussels was the seat of the Federation, which had been declared Federal Territory with a special status following dissolution of Belgium. The Federal Authority was an administrative structure with limited